The number of new passive houses in the Czech Republic increased by about a fifth last year

Prague - The number of newly completed passive houses, which are houses with very low energy consumption, increased last year in the Czech Republic by about a fifth to 1200. Overall, there are about 7200 of them, mostly family houses. The share of new passive houses in the total number of newly built family houses rose by one percentage point to six percent last year. This was reported by Tomáš Vanický, director of the Passive House Center. According to the Czech Statistical Office, 19,245 family houses were completed in the Czech Republic last year.

"The figures provided are only indicative. Exact statistics still do not exist, so we draw from the frequency of interest from applicants for consultations during the project and construction at the Passive House Center, as well as from the data of the New Green Savings program, where the number of interested parties increased by nearly one hundred percent year-on-year last year," Vanický stated.

For a passive house, key is the recovery of heat, known as recuperation, where a system of pipes exchanges air while heat remains inside. The first house referred to as passive was built in 1990 in Darmstadt, Germany.

According to Vanický, the greatest interest in this type of construction is still among builders of family houses. There is also growing interest in apartment buildings, as exemplified by the development projects of the company JRD. "There is also great interest in the public sector. Last year, this specifically included primary and kindergartens, hospitals, municipal offices, children's and youth houses, as well as senior houses or cultural centers," Vanický added.

Last year, for instance, the Sýpka kindergarten was opened in Brno, a primary school in Psáry, the ZŠ Psáry kindergarten in the district of Prague-West, a kindergarten in Sedlejov in the Vysočina region, or a community house for seniors in Týnec nad Labem. "For a longer time, buildings of the University Center for Energy-Efficient Buildings in Buštěhrad and the Research and Innovation Center in Ostrava have been open and operationally verified," Vanický pointed out.

Examples of apartment buildings from recent years include the Ecocity Malešice project or Hyacint Modřany in Prague. The passive standard has also been applied to kindergartens in Moravské Budějovice or Semily, the Karel Malich School of Art in Holice, a primary school in Židlochovice, a senior house in Modřice in South Moravia, hospitals in Olomouc and Šternberk, or a public library in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm.