Minergie vs the average building

I find it useful to remind myself from time to time what it is that we're doing that's different from conventional construction. If you haven't already, download the following flyer (in English) from the Minergie website. It seems to be a little outdated[1], but there's still useful information. Clicking on the link should start the download of the PDF file: The Minergie Standard for Buildings

The standard requires that general energy consumption must not be higher than 75% of that of average buildings and that fossil-fuel consumption must not exceed 50% of the consumption of such buildings.

So what's an average building? Rather than try to describe that, I find it easier to consider the limiting value from my third post, figure 1: The weighted energy performance value of a Minergie house must not exceed 38 kWh per m² per year. See page 4 of the flyer for more information.

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[1] E.g. In this flyer which is edition January 2008, the U-value (the overall heat transfer coefficient) limit for the walls and roof is given to be 0.20 kWh/(m²·K), while as far as I can tell the 2009 standards set it to 0.15 kWh/(m²·K).