About Resiliency

Written By George Kontaroudis

Last week we saw large parts of the country lose electricity due to extreme weather events. Texas was hit particularly hard, with 3 million people losing power, $18 billion in estimated cost of insured damage from freeze, and multiple deaths.

There is no doubt that such events will only intensify and become even more frequent as time goes by, and the Texas blackouts certainly raise a climate warning. In 1980, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration started documenting weather and climate disasters that totaled $1 billion or more in losses.  From 1980 to 2019, the average was about 7 per year. In 2020 we saw 22.

Source: NOAA

Source: NOAA

We must ask hard questions about the resiliency of our buildings and infrastructure and devise actionable solutions that meet the challenges. In order to meet our 1.5C or even our 2.0C warming targets, set by the Paris Agreement, we need to fully decarbonize the global economy by 2050. The only way to decarbonize the building sector is by electrification, as electricity is the only type of power that can be derived from renewable sources. At the same time, relying solely on a grid has its disadvantages, which we just witnessed in Texas.

The solution is to create buildings which consume less energy overall, paired with energy autonomy.

Buildings that consume less energy will put less strain on the grid, which would eliminate the need for rolling blackouts. The Passivehouse standard offers a viable path forward. Passivehouse buildings consume less energy, notably less than 75% to what a conventional new building is, and they provide resiliency. Building to the standard means creating buildings that are super-insulated and air-tight which essentially keeps the buildings internal temperature constant even after no added heat is provided. This can be referred to as passive survivability.

If a Passivehouse building is not occupied at the time of a power failure event, the super tight envelope will simply retain the internal temperature for a very long time thus providing resiliency and avoiding any catastrophic failures (such as burst pipes), much like a refrigerator, which stays cool for a long time even without power, as long as it is not opened. For a building that is occupied when the grid fails, the ventilation system will either have to be operated with independent onsite power generation (such as photovoltaics), or windows will have to be opened occasionally, to provide fresh air. This will affect the building’s internal temperature, depending on what the temperature outside is, but a Passivehouse building will still maintain a more consistent temperature for a longer period of time compared to a conventional building.

Energy autonomy systems such as photovoltaic and solar hot water would mean that if there is a failure of the grid then there is a second system in place. With such a system we would be able to weather events like we just saw in Texas much more successfully with far fewer—if any—loss of power. In addition, with buildings requiring less energy to operate, the grid can be more flexible and have larger redundancies built into it.

There have been numerous events as severe as the Texas disaster in the recent years and months, so when Ken Levenson at the North American Passivehouse Network is asking if we can do this right, then the answer is yes, we can. And we must.

George Kontaroudis
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