admin answers:

U may look here for all tht u need regarding zero carbon homes:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6176229.stm

all questions tht u want for zero carbon homes are here:
http://www.zerocarbonhouse.com/FAQs.aspx

The energy efficient German / Austrian PassivHaus standard is recognised by the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) as one design approach for dwellings that goes some considerable way towards the government’s ‘Zero Carbon’ target, as TRADA’s new Construction Briefing explains.

The PassivHaus standard is considered by the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG) to be broadly equivalent to Code Level 4 in the CSH. It recognises that the principles underlying the PassivHaus approach have been driven by the simple desire to drastically reduce the demand for energy in buildings, yet they also achieve an enviable build quality that UK designers and housebuilders might well wish to study.

The following clear targets are set for each dwelling:

The building must not use more than 15kWh/m2/year in heating energy
The specific heat load for the heating source at the desired temperature must be less than 10W/m2
Air leakage levels at 50Pa must not exceed 0.6 times the house volume / hour (approx. 1m3/hr/m2 @ 50Pa)
Total primary energy consumption (heating, hot water and appliance electricity) must not exceed 120kWh/m2/year.
PassivHaus principles cover both new and upgraded buildings and have been broadened beyond dwellings to include educational and commercial buildings. Another major difference between PassivHaus and the CSH is that although the scheme is voluntary, it has grown in popularity particularly because funding mechanisms have been set up to make it commercially attractive to the developer and to give financial support for training to architects and others involved in the build process.

And in true German fashion, the scheme is carefully monitored at every stage. An architect trained in PassivHaus principles and practice designs the dwelling in accordance with all PassivHaus requirements. The design must be successfully appraised using the PHPP (Passive House Development Package). PHPP is a software program similar in concept to SAP2005, designed to consider many aspects of the dwelling’s energy performance at the same time. It seeks to achieve a much higher level of energy performance than that set out in Part L 2006, however, and concerns itself with a wider range of issues.

The PassivHaus Institut (PHI) double-checks the design calculations using PHPP. Products certified by PHI for the external envelope, windows and ventilation systems are then chosen by the architect / client. An air tightness test is carried out at an optimum time in the build process.

The architect is responsible for the Quality Control on site and specific checks must include the following:

Design of heat bridges – using bridge-free connection details or calculating the losses at heat bridges
Design of airtight connection details
Design of all heating, plumbing and electrical systems
Installation of heat free bridges
Installation of insulation layers which are continuous and without air pockets
Installation of joint details and service penetrations for air tightness
Adjustment of ventilation in normal service.
Although there is flexibility in the design of homes and the materials chosen, there are, however, a number of significant constraints in translating the PassivHaus design into a workable scheme for the UK, as the TRADA Construction Briefing explains.

Many within the UK construction industry would agree that we are not building to a sufficient quality to meet even current minimum standards within Part L for energy conservation. The important points about the PassivHaus standard in relation to quality are that:

The actual quality of the building is probably related more to what cannot be seen than by what we can see
The high quality of design and build are not just ‘nice to have’ but fundamentally necessary to achieving the low energy usage
The acid test to for the homeowner will not be whether it looks high quality but whether the quarterly energy bill is near to zero. This test is entirely objective and indisputable!
In short, we would need a very long awaited cultural revolution in design and site practice if we were to adopt the PassivHaus approach, as this would mean embracing the methodical and on-going training, auditing and testing on site which are necessary components of the PassivHaus process.

All ur answers regarding Passivhaus are here:

http://livemodern.com/buildblogs/ac420e4fb774f916b29045a00a3ec6c1

hope i’ve helped!gudluck!!

admin answers:

Not to be rude.. But have you or anyone else that will read this think about what the world has been doing since the last ice age?? The world has been getting warmer.. The earths temp. Will cycle and continue to do so.. Maybe humans contribute to the effects of the warming.. But the earth will continue to get warmer with or without us.. You would think that the human race would see this and adjust instead of trying to fight something that cannot be changed..who knows maybe overall man has prolonged the global warming effect that we are seeing now.. Or have we increased it??

admin answers:

Although it is difficult to predict the future in these uncertain economic times, there are already many green energy related jobs. Here is a short list:
• Solar Lab Technician
• Solar and PV Installer/Roofer
• Solar Fabrication Technician
• Marketer of Solar Technologies
• Financial Analysts
• Solar Operations Engineer
• Solar Appliances Installer
• Architect (designing solar friendly homes)

admin answers:

Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), also known as Green tags, Renewable Energy Credits, Renewable Electricity Certificates, or Tradable Renewable Certificates (TRCs), are tradable, non-tangible energy commodities in the United States that represent proof that 1 megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity was generated from an eligible renewable energy resource (renewable electricity). Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SRECs) are RECs that are specifically generated by solar energy.

These certificates can be sold and traded or bartered, and the owner of the REC can claim to have purchased renewable energy. According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Green Power Network, RECs represent the environmental attributes of the power produced from renewable energy projects and are sold separate from commodity electricity.

In states that have a REC program, a green energy provider (such as a wind farm) is credited with one REC for every 1,000 kWh or 1 MWh of electricity it produces (for reference, an average residential customer consumes about 800 kWh in a month). A certifying agency gives each REC a unique identification number to make sure it doesn’t get double-counted. The green energy is then fed into the electrical grid (by mandate), and the accompanying REC can then be sold on the open market.

Rices depend on many factors, such as the vintage year the RECs were generated, location of the facility, whether there is a tight supply/demand situation, whether the REC is used for RPS compliance, even the type of power created. Solar renewable energy certificates or SRECs, for example, tend to be more valuable in the 16 states that have set aside a portion of the RPS specifically for solar energy. This differentiation is intended to promote diversity in the renewable energy mix which in an undifferentiated, competitive REC market, favors the economics and scale achieved by wind farms. Current spot prices for SRECs in most states with solar portfolio standards can be viewed at SRECTrade. For example, prices in July, 2010 ranged from $255/SREC in Delaware to as high as $665/SREC in New Jersey.

For more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Energy_Certificates