Powerhouse Kjørbo - is world's first 'energy positive' building

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  Satya Swaroop Dash

  Powerhouse Kjørbo shows the way how minor architectural changes along with the use of conventional renewable sources of energy can make a building energy efficient. The best thing about it though, is that they have not constructed a new building but instead applied the energy saving to an existing building.
  In India, many office buildings can take the inspiration of Powerhouse Kjørbo and modify their premises and moreover I read somewhere that some electricity board is association with the state governments give energy subsidies to the buildings that use solar power.
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  Kaustubh Katdare

  I think this might be the first building; but one very innovative project was executed by the Gujarat government. They put the solar panels on the top of a water canal. Not only it saved land; but also controlled evaporation of water to greater extent. I also heard that the street lights in Gujarat are solar powered; which is quite impressive.
  
  If fitting up solar panels is the way to go forward, we should cover all our windows and terraces with solar panels. The only limiting factor seems to be the cost of installation.
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  Nayan Goenka

  The main problem is not the cost but the tendency and willingness to do so. Still people don't think Solar energy harvested is that powerful to run a building. They still think it is better in calculators and water heaters. The area panels need to produce enough energy is too huge. That is a big factor as well.
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  Rajni Jain

  With my limited knowledge, it is not that easy as it looks.
  
  Before installing / fitting the solar panels one has to think about the angle of fitting the solar panels which should be in a way that allows the power generation (In Gurgaon there was a building that had the solar panels, and another building had a case filed against them that the reflection of their solar panels are bothering them ). Also, the foundation of existing buildings must have constructed with a limited load calculation, that can/should not be increased by any margin.
  
  In the end, just installing solar panel's doesn't save the problem, one have to install the plant that will convert the energy in electricity as well and will take some installation and maintenance cost.