Certified European Passive House Designer

Duration: 2008 – 2011 ● Client: European Commission (IEE) ● WIP Role: Coordination, Market uptake ● www.passivehousedesigner.eu

All over Europe interest in Passive Houses has risen sharply in recent years. It is well known that new buildings can be designed energy efficient with much less consumption as buildings designed in a conventional mode. In the last ten years more than 15,000 Passive Houses have been already built all over Europe.

These are buildings, whose heating energy requirement is about one-tenth of the energy compared to the average building stock. The European Commission has decided to boost Passive House development significantly. But real market development will only happen when sufficient numbers of architects and engineers are available across Europe with the in-depth knowledge which allows them to cope with the specific challenges of Passive House design and implementation. The CEPH project gives an opportunity for qualified people to learn the fundamentals of planning and building cost-efficient Passive Houses through an intensive training course leading to the qualification "Certified Passive House Designer".

During its project phase, the CEPH project has elaborated the first intense training courses for passive house designer on an European level. These training courses enabled the participants, after the passing of an exam, to obtain the certificate of a “European passive house designer”. CEPH training courses for passive house designers have been established in Austria, Germany, Denmark, France, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Italy and The Netherlands.

The partners in the CEPH project consortium were:

• WIP – Renewable Energies, Germany (Coordinator)
• Eza!, Energie-& Umweltzentrum Allgäu GmbH, Germany
• PHD, Passivhaus Dienstleistung GmbH, Germany
• La Ma, La Maison Passive France, France
• EIV, Energieinstitut Vorarlberg, Austria
• TBZ GmbH/Srl - Technisches Bauphysik Zentrum, Italy
• ECN, Energieonderzoek Centrum Nederland, The Netherlands
• Passivhus.dk ApS, Denmark
• CPD, Centrum pasivního domu, Czech Republic
• IEPD, Inštitút pre energeticky pasívne domy, Slovakia
• UOS, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom
• AAA, Arkitektskolen Aarhus, Denmark
• PHI, Passivhaus Insitut Darmstadt, Germany was main subcontractor

The CEPH project was supported by the European Commission under the Intelligent Energy for Europe Programme.