Federal tax credits soon to come from the newly passed Inflation Reduction Bill aim to reduce the cost of environmentally-friendly changes and set the stage for widespread adoption, and Phius says their certified passive homes will emerge as a model for how to adapt.
For example, as residents in Houston struggle with rising temperatures and the potential for loss of electricity, the Fly Flat infill pocket neighborhood, designed with ever-unpredictable and more extreme weather in mind, integrated Phius passive house standards to be ready.
The housing project, led by a student-driven design team, utilized modular home designs and implemented energy-outage prevention tools such as community solar and FEMA 499 strategies to design weather-resilient homes the community can thrive for years to come.
Excess energy is sent to the grid, where it can be reused for EV charging – another increasingly important perk of building to Phius standards as the electric car market heats up and tax credits emerge, especially in a state where the grid is already struggling to keep up with demand during peak summer hours.
And, when wildfire smoke fills the air, one family in Seattle, Washington, will breathe easy in their Phius-certified passive home, named Park Passive. “These homes all share mitigation of climate change and adaptability as a result of climate change designing and building for resilience, habitability, and passive survivability during power outages, fires, and other climate-driven events,” said Katrin Klingenberg, executive director of Phius.
Phius is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization committed to decarbonizing the built environment by making high-performance passive building the mainstream market standard. We train and certify professionals, maintain and update the Phius climate-specific passive building standard, certify and quality assure passive buildings, certify high-performance building products and conduct research to advance high-performance building.
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