A German renovation firm is raising a lot of interest in their ability to make old buildings really energy efficient simply by putting a big ‘coat' on them.

Taking a 3D scan of a house, they prefabricate wood panels of identical shape and scale to be attached to the outside, and have turned the most inefficient buildings in Germany into net-energy producers.

Called Ecoworks, the panels they make come with built in solar panels and insulation, meaning they can be installed on the host building in as little as 20 minutes.

They're made from wood that's been harvested after its achieved optimal carbon capture.

In a demonstration, an apartment block from 1930s that used 450 kilowatt-hours per square meter of space (catastrophically inefficient, even by American standards) was equipped with Ecoworks panels while the company monitored the changes in energy consumption.

It became so inexpensive to heat, cool, and power, that the solar panels in the roof made it a carbon-negative building, where before it was listed as one of the least efficient in the whole nation.

This summer the startup has another seven projects lined up, identifying which structures will be best suited for the technology by using AI.

Soulless apartment blocks work best, but they're trying as fast as possible to adapt the panels for use in family homes, schools, and even buildings in other countries.

In Germany alone, writes Adele Peters at Fast Company, 30 million buildings are in need of renovation over the next five years to meet prescribed climate targets.

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