Retrofitting Electrically Heated Single-Family Houses to Net-Zero Energy

Author(s):  
L. R. Bernardo ◽  
Henrik Davidsson
2020 ◽  
pp. 1420326X2096115
Author(s):  
Jaime Resende ◽  
Marta Monzón-Chavarrías ◽  
Helena Corvacho

Buildings account for 34% of world energy consumption and about half of electricity consumption. The nearly/Net Zero Energy Building (nZEB/NZEB) concepts are regarded as solutions for minimizing this problem. The countries of Southern Europe, which included the nZEB concept recently in their regulatory requirements, have both heating and cooling needs, which adds complexity to the problem. Brazil may benefit from their experience since most of the Brazilian climate zones present significant similarities to the Southern European climate. Brazil recently presented a household energy consumption increase, and a growing trend in the use of air conditioning is predicted for the coming decades. Simulations with various wall and roof solutions following the Brazilian Performance Standard were carried out in a low standard single-family house in three different climate zones in order to evaluate thermal comfort conditions and energy needs. Results show that in milder climate zones, achieving thermal comfort with a low energy consumption is possible, and there is a great potential to achieve a net zero-energy balance. In the extreme hot climate zone, a high cooling energy consumption is needed to provide thermal comfort, and the implementation of a nearly zero-energy balance may be more feasible.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed A. Alyahya ◽  
Nawari O. Nawari

Global climate change is serving as warning signs it gradually begins to capture the attention of people at large. Many actions have been and continue to be taken by governments and organizations to preserve the planet, which is impactful and needed. But conservation efforts are not exclusive to governments and large institutions- individuals can contribute in multiple ways that will have ripple effects, one being the choice to build sustainable, net-zero energy homes. Building a house that is a net-zero energy requires many strategies.One of the most compelling factors in reducing the home energy consumption, to then achieve a net-zero energy home especially in hot-dry regions, is the optimization of the building envelope performance. This paper discussed several building envelope design strategies that are suitable for homes in hot-dry regions and tested them.The Methods including analyzing case study from Qater by using computer and were analyzed using Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools for energy simulation programs. All those strategies were applied to a design proposal for a house in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which is a hot-dry region. Further, the same simulation analyses were projected onto an identical house to the design proposal, but with a traditional, low-efficient building envelope.The results showed that the house with the high-efficient building envelope had 48% less energy consumption than the one that has the low-efficiency envelope.This research demonstrated the efficacy of the building envelope to reduce the energy consumption of single-family homes in hot-dry regions. The study outlines vital strategies for a high-efficient building envelope design in hot-dry areas that reaching net-zero energy homes and thus help to offset the negative impact of climate changes in arid areas.


2013 ◽  
Vol 689 ◽  
pp. 44-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvatore Carlucci ◽  
Lorenzo Pagliano ◽  
Paolo Zangheri

The energy design of a building is a multivariable problem, which can accept different sets of solutions. In this paper an integrated energy design process is proposed to support designers in identifying the most suitable set of passive solutions to guarantee a comfortable indoor environment and hence to minimize its energy needs for space conditioning. The proposed design process uses EnergyPlus as energy simulation engine, guided by GenOpt via some code written by the authors. The optimization aims at minimizing two seasonal long-term discomfort indices (based on the ASHRAE Adaptive comfort model) through the Particle swarm optimization algorithm. We test here the proposed process in a case study where we identify the most suitable envelope components and passive strategies for the design of a single-family net zero energy home located in the Mediterranean climate. The building is now actually under construction. It should be noted, however, that the modeling and the optimization approach outlined in this paper can be applied to any residential or commercial building prototype.


Author(s):  
Jordan Thompson ◽  
Moncef Krarti

Abstract In this paper, a resiliency analysis is conducted to assess the energy, economic, and outage survivability benefits of efficient and Net-Zero Energy (NZE) communities. The analysis addresses the design of an energy-efficient and NZE community using Phoenix, Arizona as the primary location. The loads from the baseline, energy-efficient , and NZE single-family homes modeled in BEopt are used to determine load profiles for various residential community types. The photovoltaic (PV) and battery storage system sizes necessary for the community to survive a 72-hour power outage are determined using REopt. The economic analysis indicates that it is 43% more cost-effective to install a shared PV plus storage system than to install individual PV plus storage systems in an energy-efficient community. It is found that only a 4% difference in net present cost exists between a PV plus storage system sized for a 24-hour outage and a 144-hour outage. In the event of a community-wide lockdown, the survivability of the energy-efficient community is only 6 hours during a time where plug loads are increased by 50% due to added office electronics. A climate sensitivity analysis is conducted for efficient communities in Naperville, Illinois and Augusta, Maine. The analysis suggests that for a 72-hour power outage starting on the peak demand day and time of the year, the cost of resiliency is higher in climates with more heating and cooling needs as HVAC is consistently the largest load in a residential building.


2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cs. Szász

The paper presents an intelligent building (IB) development strategy emphasizing the locally available non-polluting renewable energy resources utilization. Considering the immense complexity of the topic, the implementation strategy of the main energy-flow processes is unfolded, using the net zero-energy building concept (NZEB). Noticeably, in the first research steps the mathematical background of the considered NZEB strategy has been developed and presented. Then careful LabView software-based simulations prove that the adopted strategy is feasible for implementation. The result of the above mentioned research efforts is a set of powerful and versatile software toolkits well suitable to model and simulate complex heating, ventilation and air-conditioning processes and to perform energy balance performance evaluations. Besides the elaborated mathematical models, concrete software implementation examples and measurement data also is provided in the paper. Finally, the proposed original models offer a feasible solution for future developments and research in NZEB applications modelling and simulation purposes.


2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl A. Feickert ◽  
Thomas J. Hartranft ◽  
Franklin H. Holcomb ◽  
John L. Vavrin ◽  
Alexander M. Zhivov ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document