Professional Training and Technology Centre, BTZ Rohr-Kloster Visit
Day three, what a lovely sunny day! We leave about 8:30 in the morning from guest house and heading to the Rohr professional training and technology centre. Firstly, we meet Michael Mickel, the head of training officer or this centre today. Then, we are all being invited to have an introduction section in a lecture room.
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Figure 16 & 17:
We are in the lecture room, photo credited by Gary
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BTZ Rohr-Kloster Centre was being established on 1st July 1990, as an inter-company vocational training centre. It costs investment of 60 million Euro in construction project with the total area of 12.8 hectares. There have approximately 100 employees including trainers, teachers, social, technical, and sales personal and so on. Business areas are including Inter-company training centre, consulting services centre, metal and manufacturing technology centre etc. They also have various departments such as Building and construction department, electrical department and Butchery department etc.
During the introduction section, we are being described about the topics of energy revolution or building energy efficiency in Germany. It is interesting to note that, the old house for residential used and commercial used in Germany do have an energy efficiency problem. Infrastructure issue such as no high speed internet indoor, heating is not adapted and energy used for each company calculation difficulties both are being discussed.
After that, we are all being introduced by Mr. Michael about the concept and the need of ‘Passive House’. He said, no matter the climate or region, passive house stay at a comfortable temperature all year around with minimal energy inputs. It is good to know that this building is heated passively: they make efficient use of sun, internal heat sources, heat recovery, and rendering conventional heating systems are unnecessary throughout the winter. During warmer period passive house makes use of passive cooling technique strategic shading to keep comfortably cool. Either way, superior components combined with care planning ensure that temperatures remain constant and comfortable in all year around. So it is Sustainable, affordable and comfortable for everyone.
After lunch, we are going to look deeper in the techniques of ‘Passive House’. A passive house building acts more like an insulated flask, which passively keeps its contents at the right temperature without the need for active heating or cooling.
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Figure 18 & 19: Two demonstration of
Passive House in the main building
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- Insulation: A well-insulated building is going to keep warm in winter and heat out in summer.
- Passive House Windows: Have to be strategically positioned, and highly insulated in order to make good use of sun’s energy.
- Ventilation with heat recovery: Passive House ventilation systems provide plentiful fresh and dust-free air with maximal energy efficiency through heat recovery.
- Airtightness: Passive House are all designed to avoid leakage in the building envelope thus boosting the energy efficiency while preventing draughts and moisture damage
- Thermal bridge free design: Avoidance of thermal bridges, weak points in the building envelope, it has to be contributes to pleasant, even temperature while eliminating moisture damage and improved the overall energy efficiency.
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Figure 20 & 21: We are all given a
talk by the head training officer Mr. Michael, and we are discussing about the
principles of Passive House Buildings, photo credited by Gary
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It is good to know that for now the versatility of passive house standard is increasing in Germany. It is going to be used in retrofits the standard of EnerPHit and as for non-residential buildings such as schools, administrative buildings, manufacturing plants and hotels. As passive house is based on physical principles, each building can and should be adapted to its particular climate.
In addition to vast, long term energy savings make passive house an excellent investment globally, especially in the face of decreasing energy resources and rising energy costs in Germany. The passive house standard exemplifies sustainable affordability. Financial support for passive house have already available in a number of countries, not just in Germany, further reduce its cost. Even without such financial support, passive house are cost-effective over its life-cycle then their other conventional counterparts.
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Figure 22
& 23: More pictures about the Passive House and the materials they used for
the insulation
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Figure 24: Group picture in front of the
BTZ Rohr Educational & Technology Centre, the main building
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