The Capital City Housing Corporation of Mongolia has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a company from Germany called Rongen Architekten to cooperate on introducing European ‘passive house standards’ to the country. The ‘passive house’ is the world’s leading benchmark in energy efficient construction. The memorandum focuses on infrastructure development in the challenging environments of the ger districts of Ulaanbaatar.

The Passive House standard requires buildings to use at least 80% less energy than a comparable conventional building. It quietly takes advantage of the natural environment, utilising the surrounding climate to maintain a comfortable interior temperature in an eco & wallet friendly way.

Using the experience of cold Russian winters, the passive apartments use 800 kilowatt of energy for heating per square meter in a year; 53 percent lower than “normal” building might use. In Mongolia, the weather is similar to the extreme continental climate of east Siberia, with warm summers and winter temperatures dipping to below -40 deg C.