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This study proposes an independent dedicated outdoor air system (IDOAS) for energy-plus houses under the humid subtropical climate located in Daejeon, South Korea. The proposed IDOAS can be used as a stand-alone ventilation and dehumidification system. In order to investigate the energy efficiency of the IDOAS, four different types of systems are simulated including the conventional dehumidifier (i.e., Case 1) and conventional dedicated outdoor air system (DOAS) (i.e., Case 2). The first IDOAS (i.e., Case 3) is designed such that the evaporator of the heat pump is located at the supply air (SA) side and the two separated condensers are located on the SA and exhaust air sides, respectively. The second IDOAS (i.e., Case 4) has a direct evaporative cooler located on the exhaust air side to improve the heat extraction rate. It is shown that the conventional DOAS and IDOAS-2 yielded the highest energy efficient system.

The energy conservation through energy efficiency in the building has acquired prime importance all over the world. The four main aspects for energy efficiency in a building include first and foremost the nearly zero energy passive building design before actual construction, secondly the usage of low energy building materials during its construction, thirdly use of energy efficient equipments for low operational energy requirement and lastly integration of renewable energy technologies for various applications. These aspects have been discussed along with their economics and environmental impacts briefly in this paper.The first aspect is related to the prior design before construction of a solar passive building techniques adapted all over the world not only for passive heating/cooling but also for daylighting the building. Second is utilizing the low embodied energy building materials for building construction. The third aspect deals with the operational energy conservation using energy efficient equipments in the building. Lastly, the building has to include utility of integrated renewable systems for hot water heating, solar photovoltaic electrification, etc. Keywords: Sustainable building, Renewable energy, Economics, Building energy efficiency

This paper presents an exploratory analysis of microgeneration installer businesses in the UK during a period of intense change in policies supporting microgeneration from 2010 to 2012. The research examines the influence of installer businesses on rates of uptake and standards of installation, and the interplay between business practices and the policy environment. The research developed new detailed datasets through a nationwide survey, to which 388 installers responded, and follow-up interviews with 22 installers. Focusing on solar photovoltaics and air source heat pumps installed in households, the results show the fundamental dependence of installer businesses on government financial incentives and on the quality assurance scheme in operation. Market confidence was compromised by the sharp reduction in the Feed-In Tariff (FIT) for residential solar PV in 2012 and long delays to the equivalent Renewable Heat Incentive for residential installations. Nevertheless, more modest FIT levels have reduced the risk of sub-optimal installations and inappropriate specification of microgeneration systems. The findings underline the need for consistent policy to allow installer businesses and their supply chains to develop and mature, and thus facilitate commercial deployment of microgeneration of high quality, raise its competiveness with incumbent forms of energy supply and contribute to decarbonisation goals.

This study performs a comparative environmental life cycle assessment between typical, nearly net zero, net zero and energy plus houses in Thailand. It is demonstrated that over the life span of 50 years, in comparison to the typical house, the net zero energy house accounts for 81%, 77%, 90%, 63% and 69% less impacts in terms of global warming, terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication, marine eutrophication and photochemical ozone creation, respectively. In a life cycle perspective, the energy plus house is found to be carbon negative and offers net savings towards terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication, marine eutrophication and photochemical ozone creation as well; thanks to its ability to export roof top PV generated electricity to the public grid. The energy plus house is, however, noted to account for 35% higher metal depletion potential in comparison to the typical house. Despite offering considerable environmental impacts reductions in a life cycle perspective, these energy efficient houses are noted to account for higher embodied impacts associated with their manufacturing and maintenance stages in comparison to a typical house. PV panels account for most of these additional embodied impacts and particularly for the energy plus case, are noted to dominate all other materials, even concrete and steel.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored a study to determine the national savings achievable in the commercial buildings through widespread deployment of controls, elimination of faults, and use of better sensing. The study estimated savings from 34 measures in 9 building types and across 16 climates. These buildings are responsible for almost 57% of the US commercial building sector energy consumption. In addition to the individual measures, three packages of measures were created to estimate savings: (1) efficient building, (2) typical building, and (3) inefficient building. The results showed significant potential for energy savings across all building types and climates. The total site potential savings by building type aggregated across all climates for each measure varied between 0 and 16%. The total site potential savings aggregated across all building types and climates for each measure varied between 0 and 11%. The national potential site energy savings across all building types studied is 29%. Across all building types, the savings represent approximately 1393 PJ (1.32 quads) of site energy savings or 2912 PJ (2.76 quads) of primary (or source) energy savings. Extrapolating the results for other building types not analyzed as part of this study, the primary energy savings could be in the range of 4220 to 5275 PJ. For comparison, the total US primary energy consumption across all sectors of energy use was 102,762 PJ (97.4 quads) in 2015. This makes commercial building control improvements strategically important to sustained reductions in national energy consumption. To realize most of this potential savings, many gaps can be addressed through research development and deployment (RD&D), as recommended in this paper.

Numerous mandatory energy efficiency building standards and rating systems have been developed globally. The International Passive House Standard is a voluntary alternative, but there is little data on the performance of houses built to this standard in Australia. One house in suburban Canberra demonstrates that the Passive House Standard can be used to build high-performance houses with predictable outcomes. Extreme energy efficiency and occupant comfort were key performance objectives in building the three-bedroom house. Like most energy efficient housing projects in Australia, the building was designed to take advantage of solar gain, thermal mass and cross flow ventilation, but what set this project and all Passive House projects apart was the careful attention to airtightness, mechanical ventilation, avoidance of thermal bridging and the use of energy modelling tools at the design stage. The result was a house that required virtually no heating in winter despite frosty -2°C mornings; no artificial cooling in summer despite 37°C days and; overall consumed 64% less energy than similar households in the same city. Energy consumption, temperature and CO2 levels have been monitored and confirm exceptional levels of comfort and indoor air quality. The total energy consumed was within 12% of predicted values thus supporting the effectiveness of the Passive House Standard.

In recent years’ technology have made a huge development leap. As technologies are developing, the prices for them are decreasing and renewable energy technologies becomes more available for households. For residential buildings, when using renewable energy technologies, the unused electricity goes to waste and is not used by anyone. For this reason, the NET payment system was introduced, where net metering can be conducted. But, as in every system, there are loopholes that need to be resolved and there is still potential to optimize the system to improve overall efficiency. The aim of the research was to evaluate and improve end-user involvement in single energy system to promote overall energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy. The way to do it is to evaluate existing solar PV system in microgeneration regime and potentially optimize end-user behavior, energy use patterns and integrate technical improvements, such as new inverter, accumulation tank for hot water and visible metering system. Because of optimization with changed inverter, additional accumulation tank and visible metering system, household self-consumption of energy from solar PV increased from 31.21 % to 79.85 % from total energy produced.

The energy saving and electricity production schemes for a school building in hot and humid climate were studied by a building energy package eQUEST. High-performance building envelops, energy-efficient air-conditioning systems and lighting fixtures were employed to save energy consumption and building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) panels were adopted to meet the energy needs. The annual electricity demand was 300 MWh, and 97.5% of it can be supplied by the vertical BIPV facades. Further PV installations on the roof can generate more electricity to balance the energy use. The results show that school block is possible to achieve the zero building energy consumption.

The insufficiency of current energy sources, elevated costs and global climate worriment are distinctive factors making of renewable energy an issue of boosting consideration. In this concern, solar energy is viewed as being indefinitely environmental friendly, carbon-free, beneficial nature with appreciated cost potentials and is witnessing fast progressing. Following the Horizon 2020 climate and energy package, the volume of gases emitted by greenhouses has to be cut down by 20% by all the European Union (EU) member countries in order to enhance energy performance by 20% and raise the renewable energy rate to 20% by 2020. Solar energy on building roofs plays a crucial aspect in renewable and sustainable energy consumption of high-density human habitats. A merest energy should be allocated to provide hot water service from solar sources, as other European norms for new buildings by the Spanish Technical Building Code, similarly to other European regulation on achievement objectives. The climate zone and the overall demand of hot water in the building regulate this minimal amount needed. This manuscript use a new methodology for automatic detection of geometric patterns from aerial or space images using a Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) algorithm. In this way, an automatic method for the identification of building roofs in order to assess the opportunities available to install solar thermal systems in small urban areas has been developed. As case of study: a village with 7000 inhabitants was analyzed in the South of Spain. The maximum overall accuracy obtained among the different classifications made was 98.05%, avoiding problems related to the use of images with high spatial resolution, as in the salt-and-pepper noise effect. This approach contributes reducing the generated carbon and GHG emissions and open new perspectives for energy savings strategies to optimize the energy efficiency of buildings. In the case study, implementing the solar thermal systems would come out with a saving of 1.4 tons of CO 2 per inhabitant.

Through a comparative life cycle analysis of typical, nearly net zero, net zero and energy plus houses in Thailand, each having a net floor area of 141.4 m2; this study demonstrates that the operational electricity demand of typical houses can be reduced by 37% by incorporating various energy saving measures and goes further to establish that this reduced demand can be partially, fully or-over met through in-house electricity generation by solar photovoltaic. Over a period of 50 years, the transition from typical to nearly net zero and net zero energy houses is assessed to offer total life cycle primary energy savings of about 69% and 86%, respectively; while the energy plus house is assessed to have (i) a potential of feeding in 7450 kWh of electricity into the public grid each year and (ii) the capability of being energy neutral in a life cycle perspective over a duration of 16 years. The embodied energies through the evolution from typical to energy plus houses are however noted to grow up to 214%, mainly because of the manufacture of photovoltaic panels.

Residential building insulation is regarded as an easy solution for environmentally friendly building design. This assumption is based on the perception that the amount of thermal energy used to create insulation in most cases is much smaller than the amount of thermal energythat is needed for space heating without insulation over the lifespan of a building. When the energy sources for insulation production are similar to the energy mix that supplies heat, this logic is valid to very high level of insulation. However, in Denmark, as well as many other countries this assumption is becoming increasingly incorrect. Given the generally long service life of buildings, the significance of future energy mixes, which are expected/intended to have a smaller environmental impact, can be great. In this paper, a reference house is used to assess the life cycle environmental impacts of mineral wool insulation in a Danish single-family detached home. This single-family house, is based on averages of current Danish construction practices with building heat losses estimated using Be10. To simulate a changing district heating grid mix, heat supply fuel sources are modeled according to Danish energy mix reports of fuel mix since 1972. Both the dynamic impact potentials saved by using insulation and the impacts induced from insulation's production are utilized to create an overall dynamic energy inventory for the lifecycle assessment. Our study shows that the use of such a dynamic energy inventory is necessary for increasing the validity of optimization assessment, and our study further shows that it is likely that current Danish regulation will not promote optimum levels of insulation in the near future.

This article discusses feasibility of achieving net-zero energy goals in retrofitting commercial buildings, where a specific case study is presented to illustrate research process, design methods and results. An existing commercial building located in Holyoke, Massachusetts was chosen as the research target to study how to integrate passive design strategies and energy-efficient building systems to improve the building performance and reduce energy consumption. Also, the objective was to investigate how to maximize energy savings and reach net zero energy goals by utilizing renewable energy sources for building’s energy needs. Based on extensive energy modeling and simulations, multiple design considerations were investigated, such as material selection, improvements to building envelope, retrofitting of HVAC and lighting systems, occupancy loads, and application of renewable energy sources. Analysis of simulation results was used to determine how specific techniques lead to energy savings, and how to minimize energy consumption. The research results show that this commercial building is able to meet net-zero energy use after appropriate design manipulations and use of multiple renewable energy sources. The strategies and methodologies can be applied to other adaptive reuse and retrofit projects, and improve energy performance of existing buildings. The contribution of this research is that the methodology can be replicated and applied to other retrofit projects in order to improve energy efficiency associated with existing building stock.

Future buildings will use technologies that are either well-known, innovative, or a combination thereof in order to be environmentally friendly and feasible at the same time. To evaluate and compare such systems through simulation, adaptive tools need to be available. This paper describes a conceived method for planning quarters and settlements. The novelty of this work emerges from the combination of a building simulation with a linear economic optimisation of the energy system, to achieve the energy-plus house standard for a settlement. Furthermore, the tools applied are adaptive or open source. In this article, a hypothetical basic example is given for a predefined idealised settlement, which consists of 132 single-family houses of one building type. The hourly demand for electrical energy and heat is established for three energy-efficiency classes for the building type with a dynamic simulation in MATLAB/SIMULINK using the CARNOT toolbox. This toolbox is also used to calculate the specific electrical energy production by photovoltaics. The components for the energy system of the settlement are implemented in the open source linear optimisation tool URBS. An economic optimum for the energy system of the settlement is found for each of the energy efficiency classes for an accumulated energy demand of the buildings. In this way, a lossless energy hub between the buildings is assumed. The results of the conducted simulations indicate that the optimal ratio of air/water to ground/water heat pumps shifts towards air/water heat pumps with more energy efficient houses. This is due to the lower specific investment costs, which outweigh the operational costs when less energy is required. The lowest costs for the entire energy system are for the one with the most energy efficient settlement. This is the case, as the costs for the higher energy standard of the buildings are not considered in the calculations. The behaviour of the optimisation is tested and discussed through a sensitivity analysis for one efficiency class. By presenting this simple, comprehensible example, an impression of the possible applications for this methodology is conveyed.

95 percent of American households own at least one car, and with the help of newly introduced Vehicle to Home technology, it is now possible for buildings, vehicles, and renewable energy sources to work together as a single techno-ecological system to meet the requirements of a net zero energy building. Vehicle to Home technologies use idle electric vehicle battery power as a grid storage tool to mitigate fluctuations from renewable electric power sources and to help supply backup power in the event of an emergency. This study aims to investigate the role of Vehicle to Home technology in satisfying the energy requirements for a net zero energy building. For this purpose, an optimization analysis is performed first to select the best design alternatives for an energy-efficient building under the relevant economic and environmental constraints. Next, solar photovoltaic sources are used to supply the building’s remaining energy demand and thereby minimize the building’s grid reliance. Finally, Vehicle to Home technology is coupled with the renewable energy source as a substitute for power from the grid. The results indicate that, with the help of this system, it is possible to not only lower the monetary value of the required grid electricity for such a building to zero in certain months of the year but also to earn money to compensate for the installation costs of solar panels and other technologies necessary for a net zero energy building, while grid electricity consumption for the rest of the year can still be effectively reduced by up to 68% compared to that of a conventional building design.

Energy consumption has dramatically increased in buildings over the past decade due to population growth, more time spent indoors, increased demand for building functions and indoor environmental quality, and global climate change. Building energy use currently accounts for over 40% of total primary energy consumption in the U.S. and E.U. Nevertheless, significant energy savings can be achieved in buildings if they are properly designed, constructed and operated. For this reason, building energy efficiency can provide key solutions to energy shortages, carbon emissions and their serious threat to our living environment. This paper offers a brief overview of building energy-consumption situations, relevant energy-saving approaches, and the influence of global climate change. Building energy-consumption situations based on data derived from international energy reports are initially compared between the U.S., China and the E.U. Both similarities and differences are found in aspects of building energy end-uses and final energy fuel-types among these top three building energy consumers. We then introduce the current concept of the zero-energy building (ZEB). State-of-the-art approaches for ZEB technologies are summarized in three categories: passive energy-saving technologies, energy-efficient building service systems and renewable energy production technologies. The feasibility of these technologies is reviewed. In addition, we briefly discuss the influence of global climate change on the evolution of building energy use in the future. We find that climate change significantly impacts building energy performance, particularly in space heating and cooling. Improvements on building envelope and ventilation can play an important role in reducing space heating and cooling consumption levels. We also provide some suggestions for further developing ZEBs.

In this study, we explored the effects of different design strategies on final and primary energy use for production and operation of a newly constructed apartment building. We analysed alternatives of the building “As built” as well as to energy efficiency levels of the Swedish building code and passive house criteria. Our approach is based on achieving improved versions of the building alternatives from combination of design strategies giving the lowest space heating and cooling demand and primary energy use, respectively. We found that the combination of design strategies resulting in the improved building alternatives varies depending on the approach. The improved building alternatives gave up to 19–34% reduction in operation primary energy use compared to the initial alternatives. The share of production primary energy use of the improved building alternatives was 39–54% of the total primary energy use for production, space heating, space cooling and ventilation over 50-year lifespan, compared to 31–42% for the initial alternatives. This study emphasises the importance of incorporating appropriate design strategies to reduce primary energy use for building operation and suggests that combining such strategies with careful choice of building frame materials could result in significant primary energy savings in the built environment.

Renewable energy not only can effectively alleviate the depletion of traditional energy sources, but also meet the need for building development. At present, the applications of renewable energy in buildings are still facing many problems. This paper presents a review of the application of renewable energy systems in buildings, and describes how to make good use of renewable energy for the sustainable development in the hot-summer and warm-winter region of China. The effective measures would improve the calculation methods, design the building and energy system with locality, develop integrated design of renewable energy systems, establish evaluation indexes of renewable energy applicability in buildings, and strengthen project management. Discussion results presented in the paper can provide a guideline for better to apply renewable energy systems to buildings in the hot-summer and warm-winter region of China.

This paper deals with the development of requirements for the energy-passive construction. The main emphasis is focused on a new categorization of passive houses into classes according to the Passivhaus Institute: the Passive House Classic, the Passive House Plus and the Passive House Premium. The requirement for annual specific heating demand is unchanged, maximally 15 kWh/(m2·a). A new evaluation system of Energy Passive Houses is based on renewable primary energy (PER). The aim of the paper is a description and evaluation of various classes of energy passive houses, including feasibility analysis and model examples.

Over the recent decades, China’s building energy consumption has been growing rapidly. Also the fuel mix has been changing quickly with more natural gas & electricity and less coal being used. Meanwhile, the technologies used in building sector are improving in efficiency. In this paper, the impact of technical progress and the use of renewable energy in building sector are analyzed. The energy saving and emission reduction potential of building sector are also measured. China TIMES model is used to model the future energy consumption and carbon emissions in building sector. The modelling results indicate that building energy consumption is expected to grow to around 41.6EJ in the reference scenario in 2050. The energy saving potential in 2050 can be up to 4EJ due to the improvement of both building insulation (envelop) and energy use technologies. Renewable energy used in buildings can be a great contributor to the carbon mitigation in buildings. China’s building sector can reach a relatively low-carbon future with more low- and non-carbon fuels consumed.

Many cities today are committed to increase the energy efficiency of buildings and the fraction of renewables especially in new urban developments. However, quantitative data on building energy performance as a function of urban density, building compactness and orientation, building use and supply options are rarely available during the design of new cities or early scenario analysis for existing city quarters, making it difficult for cities to effectively evaluate which concepts work today and in the future. The paper proposes a methodology to assess the energy demand and supply options as a function of the availability of geometry, building standard and use data. An automated procedure was implemented to identify each building’s geometry and volume and transfer the information to a simulation tool, which then calculates heating demand and solar energy generation on roofs and facades. The simulation includes shading calculations for each segment of the facades and roofs and thus allows a very detailed quantification of the building energy demand. By applying the methodology to a case study city quarter designed in an urban competition in Munich, it could be shown how the urban design influences the energy demand of the quarter and which fractions of renewable energy can be integrated into the roofs. While the building insulation standard and use are the is most important criteria for building energy efficiency (with an impact of more than a factor 2), the exact geometrical form, compactness and urban shading effects influences the energy demand by 10–20%. On the other hand, the detailed roof geometry and orientation influences the possible solar coverage of electricity or thermal needs. Zero energy city quarters with solar resources alone are only possible when all available building surface areas are fully optimized and do not need to fulfill other requirements such as providing roof gardens, terraces or others. Combinations with other more centralized renewable resources such as deep geothermal, solar or biomass heat or cogeneration plants are often necessary to achieve zero energy balances.

There are numerous residential building typologies in Europe, which require differentiated strategies for building rehabilitation to obtain the lowest payback and highest energy savings. Building integrated renewables can provide some or most of the building energy demand with a strong dependency on climatic conditions. Within the project “holistic energy-efficient retrofitting of residential buildings” (HERB) in the European Union seventh framework program, the most appropriate way of saving energy and supplying building integrated renewables in 7 European countries is sought. This study presents an energetic and economic comparison between energy efficient refurbishment of the building envelope and the integration of renewable solar energy technologies for different climatic conditions. A range of dynamic multi-zone simulation runs were done in EnergyPlus increasing the thermal resistance of the building envelope elements from the national reference energy standard up to a low energy standard. For the given energy demand, the solar energy integration potentials providing electricity and heat are investigated using the simulation environment INSEL. Finally, cost analyses are done to find the financially optimum strategy for saving energy with building rehabilitation or producing energy with renewable technology integration. It could be shown that building rehabilitation becomes less cost and energy efficient with decreasing geographical latitude while renewable integration increases in relevance. Building insulation measures offer much higher savings than renewable production in more Northern locations even though with slightly higher specific costs. The measures suggested are now implemented in 12 building projects within the European project focusing especially on innovative materials and renewables.

This paper explores feasibility of achieving net-zero energy goals in retrofitting commercial buildings. An existing commercial building in Holyoke, Massachusetts was chosen as the research target to study how to integrate passive design strategies and energy-efficient building systems to improve the building performance and reduce energy consumption. Also, the objective was to investigate how to maximize energy savings and reach net zero energy goals by utilizing renewable energy sources for building's energy needs. Based on extensive energy modeling and simulations, multiple design considerations were investigated, such as material selection, improvements to building envelope, retrofitting of HVAC and lighting systems, occupancy loads, as well as application of renewable energy sources. The comparative analysis of simulation results was used to determine how specific techniques lead to energy saving and cost reductions. The research results show that this commercial building is able to meet net-zero energy use after appropriate design manipulations and use of renewable energy sources. The strategies and methodologies can be applied to other adaptive reuse and retrofit projects, and improve energy performance of existing buildings.

Due to the increasing energy demand and global warming effects, energy efficient buildings have become increasingly important in the modern construction industry. This research is conducted to evaluate the energy performance, financial feasibility and potential energy savings of zero energy houses. Through the use of building computer simulation technique, a 5 stars energy rated house was modelled and validated by comparing the energy performance of a base case scenario to a typical house in Brisbane. By integrating energy reduction strategies and utilizing onsite renewable energy such as solar energy, zero energy performance is achieved. It is found that approximately 66% energy savings can be achieved in the household annual energy usage by focusing on maximizing the thermal performance of building envelope, minimizing the energy requirements and incorporating solar energy technologies.

Climatic conditions allow Macedonia to design buildings, known as «Energy-plus house». This work complements the earlier studies carried out under the project «Passive house» for single-family house of Franz Freundorfer, and skips to the next level creating a «Energy-plus house». The project supplemented by the possibility of electricity based on solar energy. Evaluations insolation and receipt of solar radiation on differently oriented surfaces have shown the promise of using photovoltaic modules for electricity generation in Macedonia weather conditions.

In China, there’s high energy consumption in buildings with less attention to building energy efficiency. All of these facts prove that there are great potentialities in energy conservation. On account of this, this paper introduces multiple building energy-saving technologies at home and abroad, including the technologies for innovative wall materials, exterior wall external insulation, heat insulation of window, utilization of solar energy, heat storage and recovery as well as the illumination energy saving technology. On the basis of new buildings, this paper gives five suggestions on building energy efficiency. Meanwhile it raises five suggestions on energy conservation based on the existing building, for which it presents purposely the technologies and measures about energy saving transformation from four aspects.

In this paper the Energy-plus house project, functioning under the climate conditions of Macedonia, was presented. On the basis of previous studies carried out for a single-family house, the concept of a fully non-volatile home using solar photovoltaic modules for the operation of the electrical equipment was designed according to "Passive house". The estimates of solar resources of the territory, defined energy input of solar radiation on differently oriented surfaces and selected the optimum tilt angle of PV modules to the horizon were presented for this article. It is shown that the solar modules generated enough electricity to meet the needs of the considered house. At the same time in the summer there is surplus electricity. The calculations presented in this paper were based on the methods of thermodynamics, using MKS EN and DIN standards, the program packages PHPP 2007, as well as the algorithm developed for calculating the amount of solar radiation on differently oriented surfaces.

A zero-energy building (ZEB), which is an autonomous building energy option, is defined as a building that produces as much energy as it uses from renewable energy sources at the site. Zero-energy buildings can exchange energy with the power grid as long as the net energy balance is zero on an annual basis.In terms of the thermal energy transfer and storage, zero-energy buildings can achieve annual energy consumption levels down to 0 kWh per square metre through the use of renewable energy sources, which compares favourably with the passive house energy criteria per square metre. Energy plus houses, in contrast with both the passive houses and zero-energy buildings, focus on producing more energy per year than they consume, which can lead to an annual energy performance of -25 kWh per square metre. Zero-energy buildings should have features like: i) Enable building owners to be isolated from fluctuating energy prices through the on or off-grid renewable energy supply ii) Help reduce peak electrical demand by self-supplying energy demands on site iii) Go hand in hand with the transformation of energy infrastructure and market. Zero-energy buildings can be achieved by incorporating energy efficiency measures and on-site renewable energy generation technologies and its energy efficiency measures include: creating a high-performance building envelope, installing energy efficient appliances and lights, increasing the use of passive solar cooling and heating techniques and installing high-efficiency mechanical systems that match the lower energy requirements of the home. On-site renewable energy generation systems can be available within a building’s footprint by using PVs, solar hot water and wind located on the building or at the site by means of PVs, solar hot water, low impact hydro and wind located on-site not on the building. Zero-energy building is still in the conceptual stage in the Asia-Pacific region. A few pilot projects have been applied to public buildings, such as research institutes, for demonstration purpose e.g., Sustainable Energy Technology Centre in China, Pusat Tenaga Malaysia’s Zero Energy Office (ZEO) Building and National Institution of Environmental Research in Republic of Korea.

The purpose of this study was to assess an energy retrofit of a building representative of those in public tertiary stock, to improve energy performance toward nearly Zero-Energy Building (nZEB) requirements. The building is located in the campus of the Politecnico di Milano University (Italy). Several hypothetical improvements regarding the building envelope and plants were assessed in terms of energy savings, costs, and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The results of the study show that it is possible to reduce primary energy demand and associated emissions up to 40% from the current values by adopting market-available and well-proven technological solutions for retrofit. Moreover, exploiting on-site renewable energy sources, the net energy consumption can be near zero. However, an economic analysis of the application of these technologies has highlighted many critical elements related to the implementation of some solutions. This is particularly true for actions related to the thermal insulation of the building envelope and to the installation of ventilation system with heat recovery. Since nZEB requirements are related to the concept of economic performance, this paper gives useful hints to better understand the viability of many commonly adopted actions and strategies for reaching such targets in building retrofit cases.

There is a global trend to deliver zero carbon buildings,\ud with European countries required to deliver near zero energy housing by 2020. This paper presents the results\ud of the simulation of the energy performance of the SOLCER house. The house was designed using a ‘systems’ approach to integrate the building technologies for thermal and electrical energy systems, based on the concept of buildings as power stations, using the renewable energy systems as part of the building envelope. The aim was to produce a house that achieves an ‘energy positive’ performance, which, on an annual basis, generates more energy than in consumes. The house is designed for wide-scale application, so, in addition to energy performance, the focus was also on affordability and ease of build. In order to assess the performance of the house a model was needed to assess the whole building energy performance of the building and its integrated energy systems. The paper describes the development of a simulation model based around the building thermal model, HTB2 (Heat Transfer in\ud Buildings: version 2). A number of sub-models were constructed to simulate the innovative heating, ventilation and power systems. Results are presented\ud relating to seasonal performance of the building, which\ud demonstrate that on an annual basis the building is around 70% self-sufficient in its energy needs, with a\ud grid export to import rate is 1.75.

In recent years, with the continuous development of society, people's awareness of energy conservation has also been enhanced. Among them, building energy consumption occupies a very large proportion in all their energy consumption. Therefore, people have taken various measures to reduce the energy consumption of building its own. External wall thermal insulation is a new building energy saving technology. Through verification, application of external wall insulation technology in building energy saving greatly reduces the energy consumption of buildings. This paper mainly introduced on the city building external wall thermal insulation technology and some related measures.

Governments around the world are taking measures to minimize the humans' impact on the climate and environment by reducing emissions and energy use in all sectors. Microgeneration utilizing renewable energy is a suitable approach to reduce energy consumption and carbon emission by offering high efficiency performance, offsetting the need for centrally-generated grid electricity and avoiding transmission/distribution losses associated with it. This study investigates the performance of a hybrid renewable microgeneration system in load sharing application between a detached house and a small office building. Two renewable energy systems are investigated: a ground source heat pump (GSHP) system and a hybrid GSHP/Photovoltaic Thermal (PVT) microgeneration system. The performance of the renewable systems is compared to a conventional system that utilizes boiler and chiller to meet the thermal loads of the two buildings. Computer models are developed for the three selected systems and then simulated in TRNSYS-17 environment over one full year under Ottawa, Canada weather conditions. The simulation results show that, by implementing a single GSHP system able to meet both heating and cooling loads of the buildings, an overall energy saving close to 46% can be achieved mainly due to the introduction of a significant renewable component. The integrated hybrid GSHP–PVT system, however, results a much higher overall energy saving of 58% due to the contribution of both geothermal and solar energy. Additionally, the GSHP–PVT microgeneration system's capability to generate both heat and power at the point of use is considered more attractive for new and remote community applications where lack of central generation stations and costly connection to the grid is neither an affordable nor a preferable option. Furthermore, reducing the buildings' dependence on the electricity grid also fits well with the “smart grid” concept and with utilities various load shaving and load levelling strategies.

Δημοσίευση σε επιστημονικό περιοδικό Summarization: Energy consumption in buildings for heating, cooling and lighting is required to be reduced in all European countries in order for the goals set by the latest European Directives for reducing energy consumption by 20% and increasing the introduction of renewable energy sources by 20% to be achieved. The present paper focuses, initially, on the reduction of energy consumption of an office building in the campus of the Technical University of Crete as well as on the cover of minimized energy demands with renewable energy sources. The approach is simulation based. Firstly, the current heating and cooling demands of the building are estimated. Subsequently, some basic energy conservation techniques are applied and a detailed analysis is performed about the new energy requirements. Finally, renewable energy sources are implemented in order to provide energy to the building or directly into the grid, thus having a net zero energy building. Παρουσιάστηκε στο: Advances in Building Energy Research

The use of efficient design parameters in the initial stages of the life cycle of a building project helps to reduce the final energy demand. This article presents research results on the relation between the morphology of a building and its energy efficiency. Three types of residential buildings are analyzed: the single-family detached house, semidetached house and multidwelling building. The cases studied modeled in EnergyPlus to obtain building energy consumption per useful built surface. Also considered is the energy produced, thanks to the installation of photovoltaic solar panels on the building roof and on 50 % of the south facade surface. The paper provides a method to obtain the curve that shows the difference between the energy demand of residential buildings for various uses (HVAC, lighting, etc.) and the energy generated by installed solar panels in the building. The results reveal that the single-family detached housing model is the less energy-efficient. In the case of multidwelling houses, the optimal building height is obtained to reduce building energy consumption depending on total useful built area. The results show that up to 25 % of multidwelling building energy demand can be satisfied by solar energy on the rooftop and the facade. The balance between the energy demand and energy production of the building highlights the dimensional parameters that define optimal building shape from an energy efficiency perspective. The results obtained can be usefully applied to estimate the optimal geometric characteristics for a building of the same total surface area, which maximally reduces the final energy demand.

INTRODUCTION This paper discusses the design and building process of a net-zero energy solar-powered house developed for the 2013 Solar Decathlon competition to promote high-performance design whil...

Kazakhstan has intensive building construction program which offers an opportunity to construct energy efficient buildings in the country and contribute towards global CO2 emissions targets. There are several energy efficient technologies and sustainable green design features available which construction industry can adopt. However, there are no proper guidelines on green or passive design features in the country. This paper outlines building design measures based on passive design principles specifically for cold climate and can be cost effectively used in Kazakhstan. It is shown that two basic and simple passive design strategies which include site selection, building orientation and proper insulation, can significantly reduce heating loads of a building and its overall energy consumption.

We need to increase the amount of energy we generate from renewable sources by more than 10 per cent in just over ten years. When you consider the length of time it takes to get new wind and solar farms through the public consultations, then design, build and connection phases, it's obvious that microgeneration is going to have to play a big part in enabling us to achieve that 10 per cent goal within that timescale. Renewable heat incentive may seem like a great tool to get the UK's households on a greener path, for microgeneration and smart metering to not be too little too late, the government needs to look at introducing yet another initiative that will enable us to install them in the first place.

Developing Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NyZEB) represents a path toward sustainable communities and is required by international regulations, starting with 2018. Combined measures for reducing the energy demand and increasing the share of renewable energy systems in buildings are very much investigated for different types of buildings. One specific case is represented by the buildings where – as result of the green energy policies – renewables are already installed, but the NyZEB status is not reached yet. These buildings are main candidates in getting this status as the initial investment required is significantly lower. A novel methodology is presented for this type of buildings aiming at identifying the optimal combination of actions to be taken for reducing the energy demand and developing optimized renewable energy mixes, integrating the existing ones, up to the (Ny)ZEB status. Following this methodology, a cases study is presented – the Solar House (low energy building with geothermal system and solar energy convertors) and the steps followed for reaching the Zero Energy Building standards are presented. Considering the current energy status of the building, the renewable energy potential and the costs, a tracked PV string array is proposed to be added and the steps in design optimization are outlined.

The integration design between architecture, technology and engineering is an important issue of sustainable building. Facing the problems such as high city density, high performance limitation, construction methods and financial problems, the integration of sustainability issues into a regular residential building is a challenge, especially in China. This article's objective is to set up a framework integrating sustainable strategies to the design and the construction of a net-zero house based on the particular living situation in China. O-house is one of the entries of the solar decathlon competition in 2013, which was designed as a net-zero house for China residential market. By analyzing existing problems and potential opportunities during the market oriented survey, a possible solution by combining an appropriate building mode, solar power technologies and energy saving methods which may suit Chinese residential market is presented in this paper. The case shows specific strategies and steps of integration design, including building composition mode, architecture and material, combination of building and renewable energy technologies, integration of building and its equipment systems and integrated indoor furniture design etc. This experimental design and construction process presents us with a net-zero energy consumption and reasonable construction consumption (e.g. costs, labour, and time). In conclusion, this paper illustrates the scope of usage for integrate sustainable residential building design, and also points out its advantages and limitations that may come out in future.

Building energy consumption increases with the acceleration process of urban constructions. The city faces the problem of energy shortage, which leads to the building energy efficiency becoming an urgent need for the global environment. BIM (Building Information Modeling) technology has been widely used in the construction industry. The current building energy consumption calculation depending on that the BIM model is imported to different energy consumption software for energy consumption analysis. There are few methods to review building energy efficiency requirements automatically. In view of this, this paper discusses the method of review of building energy consumption in Revit platform. The feasibility of the method is proved through an office building construction. The method can automatically review whether design results of the building meet the building energy efficiency requirements in the design process and can shorten the review time.

The model of converting a conventional energy dependent building to a net zero energy building to reduce the carbon emissions through higher technology adoption in efficiency gains and renewable energy generation to meet consumption. A country like India with abundant rich renewable energy potential resources, the adoption of NZEB is a one step forward to fight against climate change. The proposed strategical shifting from traditional dependency overcomes the serious effect of power outages and natural calamities, helps in better and improved energy security and to minimize carbon foot print. It enforces and highlights the demand side management through the redistribution of load and selection of renewable generation to meet the need of current building to convert and realize the goal. The several strategies are adopted to convert existing building based on conventional energy to a net zero energy building of natural and non-conventional resources discussed in this paper. The present topic which deals with green transformation buildings acts as a real prototype for present and future applications of green building model.

Passive housing is a combination of technological products which base on building energy saving concept, and it makes full use of solar energy, geothermal energy and other renewable energy to reduce the consumption of primary energy used in heating to 15 kw/h·m2·y, however, the energy consumption in low-energy house, which has equipped with various kinds of energy saving technologies, is about 30-75 kw/h·m2·y, thus, passive house has a better performance in energy saving than low-energy house. Energy saving technologies suitable for passive house and low-energy house in hot summer and cold winter area are proposed in this paper through introducing the contribution Germany has made and development of technology in passive housing, using its advanced technologies and practical experience ins passive house as reference and taking Chinese unique climate condition, building types and residents living habits into account.

To fight global warming, we must understand what our energy options are. By far the most important option is efficiency, which is the easiest, quickest, and least expensive way to fight global warming. The most efficient way to decrease the energy consumption of buildings is to increase the insulation of thermal envelopes such as the roof and exterior walls. Globally, many countries have targets to reduce building energy consumption and to provide energy efficient buildings such as passive house and zero energy buildings. This paper presents the applications of high-efficiency insulations for passive house and zero energy buildings. Insulation cost is a small percentage of the total construction cost, but the saved energy cost is large making payback periods short. Considering the possibility of rise of oil price and the exhaustion of fossil fuel, insulation should be added beyond the level that any building insulation code requires.

This paper briefly analyzes the structure and conservation approaches of building energy consumption, analyzes the forming reason and influence factors of heating and air-conditioning energy consumption and proposes the passive energy conservation designing strategies of low energy consumption building. Through the passive methods of building design, envelop enclosure and planning landscape, the goal of last year building low energy conservation can be achieved.

Most zero-energy concepts focus on a reduction of the non-renewable operational energy use in buildings rather than taking the reduction of their life cycle energy use as a starting point. Nevertheless, the life cycle embodied and end-of-life energy will become more important, especially in buildings with low operational energy. Therefore, the life cycle energy use of a Belgian zero-energy reference house is examined by means of life cycle energy assessment. The influence of design decisions and regulations on the building construction type, the building services, and the performance of the building envelope are investigated. In terms of thermal performance of the building, the results show that the life cycle embodied energy in zero-energy houses with passive or standard thermal performance was not substantially different. From a life cycle energy perspective, passive house requirements are not essential criteria for zero-energy houses in Belgium. On the other hand, large life cycle energy savings were o...

From the perspective of sustainable development,a combination of some construction examples domestic and abroad,This artical illustrates how to use solar,geothermal,wind,water and other natural energy in building design,in passive heatings and passive colling of both energy savings in order to provide for the creation of today's architectural reference.

There is a distinct lack of building design literature specific to the Central Asian region. This perhaps, could be one of reasons for the only slight improvement of new building designs and construction. One does observe the highly glazed buildings are a particularly popular feature here in Astana, as like anywhere else in the world. However, excessively glazed surfaces combined with the weather extremes leads to adverse internal conditions and skyrocketing energy bills. The work presented in this paper is a part of continuing efforts to identify analyze and promote the design of ‘low energy, green and sustainable buildings with special reference to the Kazakhstan locality. In the present context, low energy buildings’ refers to buildings inherently low energy consuming by careful passive design, utilizing intelligent building technologies to automate building services and minimize wastage of energy and by incorporation of renewable technologies for its energy supply. Demonstration of improved environmental conditions and impact on energy savings will be outlined through a cause study incorporating application of passive design approach and detailed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis for an existing building complex. The results indicated that there is a considerable influence of passive design and orientation on energy efficiency, wind comfort and safety.

The environmental and resource impacts of wooden single-family residences designed to meet the conventional Norwegian Building Code from 2010 (TEK10) and the Norwegian passive house standard NS 3700 are compared using life cycle assessment. Four different heating systems are evaluated for the two building designs: (1) electric (resistance heating), (2) electric and wood, (3) electric and a solar heat collector and (4) electric and an air-water heat pump system. The goal of the research is to evaluate the different ways of lowering the total environmental burden of a building's life cycle, considering the two building standards, and evaluating the impacts due to implementation of renewable heating systems in comparison to standard Norwegian systems largely based on electricity. The life cycle results show that the wood-framed single-family residence built according to the passive house standard provides a consistent and clear reduction of cumulative energy demand of 24–38% in comparison to the conventional building standard TEK10 with electric panel heating. In combination with efficient heating systems, a passive house building envelope with a heat pump system provides the largest savings, an improvement of almost 40% compared to a conventional house with electric heating. The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of the cleanest design compared to the standard alternative is almost 30%. Solar heated water also provides substantial environmental gains for the passive house. On the other hand, a standard building envelope with a heat-pump system reduces impacts to a level comparable to that of a passive house building with only electric heating.