Electrical design of an Efficiency House Plus

In the fall of 2010 the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development announced an interdisciplinary competition with the ambitious goal to design a house generating more energy than the inhabitants need for electricity, their mobility needs as well as the demand for heating, cooling and hot water - a so-called Efficiency House Plus. A further target was to maximize the own consumption of the generated electricity by implementing a storage system. The house was to be built in Berlin as a showroom for public. For a period of 15 months (March 2012 to May 2013) a family of four is testing the suitability for daily use. Since the design of such a house requires knowledge in many fields, universities were asked to participate in the competition. The goal was not just to maximize the efficiency, energy output or own consumption by optimization, rather an attractive building was to be designed including an intelligent energy concept.