Es­pe­cially now: En­ergy ef­fi­ciency pays off!

26^th In­ter­na­ti­on­al Pass­ive House Con­fer­en­ce | 10^th and 11^th March 2023, RM­CC Wies­ba­den

After the long, pan­dem­ic-in­duced hi­atus, we fi­nally saw each oth­er live again! Un­der the pat­ron­age of the Hes­si­an Min­is­ter of Eco­nom­ics, Tarek Al-Wazir, the 26^th In­ter­na­tion­al Pass­ive House Con­fer­en­ce took place on 10^th and 11^th March 2023 in Wies­baden, Ger­many. In line with the motto of the cur­rent cam­paign "En­ergyEf­fi­ciency NOW!", around 600 par­ti­cipants from all over the world took ad­vant­age of the op­por­tun­ity to ex­change views on pass­ive house top­ics and ex­pand their know­ledge base on site at the Rhein­Main Con­gress­Cen­ter in Wies­baden or via livestream.

Plenary at the 26th International Passive House Conference in Wiesbaden | Passivhaus Institut GmbH

More than 100 lectures and the greeting by Jan Steiger | Passivhaus Institut GmbH

With a total of over 100 present­a­tions, the 16 ses­sions covered a wide range of top­ics: from highly ef­fi­cient mu­ni­cip­al build­ings to ad­vances in tools and meth­ods, ex­amples of ex­cit­ing do-it-your­self meas­ures to chal­lenges in the field of re­si­li­en­ce and elec­tri­fic­a­tion - there was something for every­one. Against the back­drop of cur­rent de­vel­op­ments in the build­ing sec­tor, this year, the fo­cus was on ret­ro­fits. Par­ti­cipants learned more about the pos­sib­il­it­ies of fast and pre­fab­ric­ated ret­ro­fits, which are cur­rently be­ing re­searched in the EU-fun­ded out­PHit pro­ject. In ad­di­tion, they ex­pan­ded their know­ledge about the use of Pass­ive House com­pon­ents for ret­ro­fits and ana­lysed ex­amples of highly ef­fi­cient ret­ro­fit­ted build­ings whose en­ergy ef­fi­ciency was in­creased to such an ex­tent that they were awar­ded the "En­erPHit" qual­ity seal of the Pass­ive House In­sti­tu­te. The two ex­clus­ive work­shops on the top­ics of policy mak­ing for ret­ro­fits (fun­ded by the EU as part of the out­PHit pro­ject) and ef­fi­cient health­care build­ings (fun­ded by the Min­istry for Eco­nom­ics, En­ergy, Trans­port and Re­gion­al De­vel­op­ment of the State of Hessen) roun­ded off the var­ied pro­gramme.

In­form­at­ive trade ex­hib­i­tion

Dur­ing the breaks, the par­ti­cipants took the op­por­tun­ity to ex­change in­form­a­tion with the man­u­fac­tur­ers at the ad­ja­cent trade ex­hib­i­tion on in­nov­a­tions in pass­ive house com­pon­ents. Dur­ing the free ex­pert-led tours, con­fer­en­ce par­ti­cipants as well as in­ter­es­ted stu­dents and homeown­ers re­ceived valu­able back­ground in­form­a­tion and ex­plan­a­tions about the products on of­fer. The vis­it­ors strolled through the newly de­signed "Trav­el­ling Pass­ive House Ex­hib­i­tion" of the LandesEn­er­gieAgen­tur Hessen and then had the pleas­ure of view­ing the long-awaited roll-up ex­hib­i­tion for the third Ar­chi­tec­ture Award, which had nev­er been shown live be­fore due to the pan­dem­ic.

Passive House Exhibition | Passivhaus Institut GmbH

Passive House Exhibition | Passivhaus Institut GmbH

Ex­cit­ing Pass­ive House pro­jects in Wies­baden and the sur­round­ing area

Those who wanted to ex­pand their pass­ive house know­ledge even fur­ther by vis­it­ing con­crete build­ing pro­jects had the op­por­tun­ity to take part in one of the five ex­cur­sions on the third day of the con­fer­en­ce. They could choose between bus tours to Pass­ive House pro­jects in Heidel­berg, Frank­furt, Darm­stadt and Weit­er­stadt/Raunheim or a ped­es­tri­an ex­cur­sion at the Wies­baden ven­ue. Par­ti­cipants vis­ited res­id­en­tial build­ings of vari­ous sizes and types as well as non-res­id­en­tial build­ings such as schools, sports halls, of­fice com­plexes and even a new art de­pot. A high­light was cer­tainly the vis­it to the hos­pit­al in Frank­furt Höchst, the first cer­ti­fied pass­ive house hos­pit­al in the world.

Many exciting building tours | Passivhaus Institut GmbH

Passive House Tour 1 to schools in Weiterstadt | Passivhaus Institut GmbH

Lots of op­por­tun­it­ies for net­work­ing

This year, the In­ter­na­tion­al Pass­ive House Con­fer­en­ce once again proved to be the net­work­ing event of the in­ter­na­tion­al Pass­ive House scene. At the ex­hib­i­tion party on Fri­day even­ing, the con­fer­en­ce par­ti­cipants were treated to mu­sic and culin­ary de­lights. As old friend­ships were strengthened and new ones were made, the even­ing hours flew by. The party was made pos­sible in co­op­er­a­tion with the of­fi­cial party spon­sor Pass­ive House Ac­cel­er­at­or and its gen­er­ous sup­port­ers Rotho­b­laas and En­er­sign. On Sat­urday, par­ti­cipants then had the chance to con­tin­ue the party at the of­fi­cial iPHA din­ner. Nu­mer­ous iPHA af­fil­i­ates, course pro­viders, man­u­fac­tur­ers and Pass­ive House plan­ners took ad­vant­age of the laid-back and fun at­mo­sphere to re­flect on the two con­fer­en­ce days... and hit the dance floor!

Lots of opportunities for networking

Splendid music by Popcakes and culinary delights at the exhibition party | Passivhaus Institut GmbH

Thank you very much!

We would like to thank all speak­ers, par­ti­cipants, ex­hib­it­ors and sup­port­ers of the 26^th In­ter­na­tion­al Pass­ive House Con­fer­en­ce in Wies­baden! With your mo­tiv­a­tion and com­mit­ment to more en­ergy ef­fi­ciency in the build­ing sec­tor, you are mak­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to ad­van­cing cli­mate pro­tec­tion world­wide!

RheinMain CongressCenter Wiesbaden | Passivhaus Institut GmbH