The Passive House Canada, Passive House California, New York Passive House and the Passive House Institute contracted Remi Charron Consulting Services, to test PHPP Version 9.6 using ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 140 in order to give more building officials the authority to accept PHPP as an energy model for building code energy performance compliance. The project objectives were to:

1. Evaluate PHPP using the ASHRAE Standard 140-2017 test cases and to record the results;
2. Examine and comment on PHPP’s predictions in comparison to benchmarks provided in Standard 140 and suggest sources of observed differences; and
3. Document findings in a comprehensive report.

The Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) has already proven its ability to predict the energy use of buildings in many post-occupancy studies. Good agreement with other building simulation programs was also found earlier. The new results support this general experience following the formal test procedure of ANSI/ASHRAE 140.