Many though not all passive energy designs do require a substantial ground-up redesign. The notion that single standardised designs can be spread across continents without consideration for local conditions will likely pass.
Retrofits are possible, though with compromises to both extant structures and building envelope and passive energy systems.
Since efficiency of storage scales with size, community-based (neighbourhood-scale) thermal storage is an option. This allocates storage across a number of local structures, at the scale of tens to hundreds of structures per storage structure.
Similar notions apply to electrical storage, e.g., neighbourhood battery facilities. This works well for battery designs (e.g., liquid metal, molten salt), which are too technical and risky for safe household deployments, but could be deployed in clustered units with dedicated technical expertise.
Retrofits are possible, though with compromises to both extant structures and building envelope and passive energy systems.
Since efficiency of storage scales with size, community-based (neighbourhood-scale) thermal storage is an option. This allocates storage across a number of local structures, at the scale of tens to hundreds of structures per storage structure.
Similar notions apply to electrical storage, e.g., neighbourhood battery facilities. This works well for battery designs (e.g., liquid metal, molten salt), which are too technical and risky for safe household deployments, but could be deployed in clustered units with dedicated technical expertise.