Scaling Up Passive House Multifamily: The Massachusetts Story

ABSTRACT
Two years ago, there was one Passive House certified multifamily building in
Massachusetts. Since then, two more have certified and five more have completed construction
and are in the certification process. As of June 2022, an additional 135 buildings are in design or
construction. Altogether, 141 buildings with 8,500 units are on the path to building and
certifying to the Passive House Standard. How did this momentum build? What are the policies
and incentives that have led to this transformation in the new construction market? What are the
incremental costs to upgrade to the Passive House standard? Lastly, do these buildings perform
as designed?
Interest in Passive House in Massachusetts began with building and policy experts who
believed that the Passive House Standard would provide a pathway for the design of
exceptionally low energy buildings. Early on, it was codified as alternative energy code
compliance path, but it did not gain traction due to market barriers including incremental cost,
training, and perceived risk to overcome these hurdles. In 2017, the Massachusetts Clean Energy
Center (MassCEC) launched the Passive House Design Challenge to track incremental costs and
validate modeled energy performance for eight buildings. Separately, in 2018 Berkshire Gas,
Cape Light Compact, Eversource, Liberty, National Grid, and Unitil, collectively the Mass Save
Program Administrators (PAs), launched an incentive offer for Passive House multifamily
projects to accelerate market transformation. These incentives fund both pre-construction
technical support and robust post-construction incentives. This paper will discuss the results to
date of both these efforts.