I have been doing some research into energy usage of domestic buildings to try and get a comparision of the energy costs for low energy v's building regs compliant buildings.

Its tricky because every standard/ measuring device uses different criteria. However, I am fairly confident that the primary energy (all energy use + transmission losses) and space heating calculations from SAP and those used by Passivehaus are comparable.

So, imagine my surprise. I modelled a house to passivehaus standards in SAP 2009 and got a spaceheating requirement of 36.59 kWh/m2/yr but a primary energy usage of only 25.5 (passivehaus minimum standards are 15 / 120 kWh/m2/yr respectively)

Any ideas anyone?

Also, can anyone know what the average space heating requirement of a dwelling to ADL 2010 is (in kWh.m2/yr)

Thanks

Good link.

It doesn't give either primary energy usage of space heating by both SAP and PHPP though. I guess to know how similar the calculations are we need to find both. This paper goes into more detail http://www.ukgbc.org/site/document/download/?document_id=494, and you are correct - they are very different.

The PH comparison is a bit of sideline really, I was trying to find a way to accurately compare annual energy costs of our timber panel system with a house built to current building regulations (without fiddling with SAP until I just about reached the minimum standards), but because ADL 2010 uses DER/TER rather than FEE I have been unable to find anything useful on the web.

Then, whilst reading about Passivhaus standards I thought it would be interesting to see how our buildings would perform if I upped the spec to minimum PH standards, thats when I discovered the discrepancies that I mention.

Always happy to be told there are beter ways to do things.....?

P

I suspect 60 kWh/m2 is getting a bit high for PHPP to give accurate results. It's four times above its normal limit!

PHPP is only £120 or so and fairly easy to learn to drive in a basic fashion. I'd suggest taking a course if you want to understand it properly though (still on my to-do list).