Passive House in Germany

Today New York Times issued an article about passive houses built in Germany, which do not use furnaces for heating even in harsh German winters. As per article, passive houses "get all the heat and hot water they need from the amount of energy that would be needed to run a hair dryer". Read the full article here.
To learn more about passive houses, you can also see Wikipedia article about this subject. As per ASHRAE, passive houses cost about 5% to 7% more to build than conventional German houses.

(Picture by permission from Passivhaus Institut, Germany)

OpenStudio - EnergyPlus plugin for SketchUp

National Renewable Energy Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy released EnergyPlus free plugin for SketchUp called OpenStudio. Read the article and download the plugin here.