Zero Energy Building: Total utility energy consumed equal to total renewable energy produced

By Fouad Sabry

What Is Zero Energy Building

A Zero Energy Building (ZEB), also known as a Net Zero Energy (NZE) building or a Zero Net Energy (ZNE) building, is a building with net zero energy consumption. This means that the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis is equal to the amount of renewable energy created on the site or in other definitions by renewable energy sources offsite, using technology such as heat pumps, high efficiency windows and insulation, and solar panels. Other names for this type of building include a Zero Net Energy During their lifetimes, these structures should be able to release into the atmosphere an amount of greenhouse gases that is lower, on average, than that of comparable non-ZNE structures. There are times when they emit greenhouse gases and utilize nonrenewable sources of energy, but there are also times when they decrease the use of energy and the generation of greenhouse gases in other places by the same amount. The pursuit of zero-energy buildings is motivated not only by a desire to have a less negative influence on the surrounding environment, but also by a desire to save money. The financial viability of zero-energy buildings is ensured by the availability of tax benefits and savings on energy expenditures. The virtually Zero Energy Building (nZEB) initiative is a similar idea that has been accepted and executed by the European Union and other cooperating nations. The objective of the initiative is to have all newly constructed buildings in the area comply with the nZEB criteria by the year 2020.

How You Will Benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Zero-energy building

Chapter 2: Renewable energy

Chapter 3: Solar energy

Chapter 4: BedZED

Chapter 5: Solar water heating

Chapter 6: Environmental impact of electricity generation

Chapter 7: Sustainable energy

Chapter 8: Low-energy house

Chapter 9: Energy-plus building

Chapter 10: Passive house

Chapter 11: Sustainable architecture

Chapter 12: Microgeneration

Chapter 13: Renewable heat

Chapter 14: Energy efficiency in British housing

Chapter 15: Solar air conditioning

Chapter 16: Solar power

Chapter 17: BrightBuilt Barn

Chapter 18: Green retrofit

Chapter 19: Creative Energy Homes

Chapter 20: Zero carbon housing

Chapter 21: Zero heating building

(II) Answering the public top questions about zero energy building.

(III) Real world examples for the usage of zero energy building in many fields.

(IV) 17 appendices to explain, briefly, 266 emerging technologies in each industry to have 360-degree full understanding of zero energy building' technologies.

Who This Book Is For

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of zero energy building.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Oct 15, 2022

Book preview

Copyright

Zero Energy Building Copyright © 2022 by Fouad Sabry. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Cover designed by Fouad Sabry.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Bonus

You can send an email to [e-mail] with the subject line Zero Energy Building: Total utility energy consumed equal to total renewable energy produced, and you will receive an email which contains the first few chapters of this book.

Fouad Sabry

Visit 1BK website at

www.1BKOfficial.org

Preface

Why did I write this book?

The story of writing this book started on 1989, when I was a student in the Secondary School of Advanced Students.

It is remarkably like the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Schools, which are now available in many advanced countries.

STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. This term is typically used to address an education policy or a curriculum choice in schools. It has implications for workforce development, national security concerns and immigration policy.

There was a weekly class in the library, where each student is free to choose any book and read for 1 hour. The objective of the class is to encourage the students to read subjects other than the educational curriculum.

In the library, while I was looking at the books on the shelves, I noticed huge books, total of 5,000 pages in 5 parts. The books name is The Encyclopedia of Technology, which describes everything around us, from absolute zero to semiconductors, almost every technology, at that time, was explained with colorful illustrations and simple words. I started to read the encyclopedia, and of course, I was not able to finish it in the 1-hour weekly class.

So, I convinced my father to buy the encyclopedia. My father bought all the technology tools for me in the beginning of my life, the first computer and the first technology encyclopedia, and both have a great impact on myself and my career.

I have finished the entire encyclopedia in the same summer vacation of this year, and then I started to see how the universe works and to how to apply that knowledge to everyday problems.

My passion to the technology started mor than 30 years ago and still the journey goes on.

This book is part of The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies which is my attempt to give the readers the same amazing experience I had when I was in high school, but instead of 20th century technologies, I am more interested in the 21st century emerging technologies, applications, and industry solutions.

The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies will consist of 365 books, each book will be focused on one single emerging technology. You can read the list of emerging technologies and their categorization by industry in the part of Coming Soon, at the end of the book.

365 books to give the readers the chance to increase their knowledge on one single emerging technology every day within the course of one year period.

Introduction

How did I write this book?

In every book of The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies, I am trying to get instant, raw search insights, direct from the minds of the people, trying to answer their questions about the emerging technology.

There are 3 billion Google searches every day, and 20% of those have never been seen before. They are like a direct line to the people thoughts.

Sometimes that’s ‘How do I remove paper jam’. Other times, it is the wrenching fears and secret hankerings they would only ever dare share with Google.

In my pursuit to discover an untapped goldmine of content ideas about Zero Energy Building, I use many tools to listen into autocomplete data from search engines like Google, then quickly cranks out every useful phrase and question, the people are asking around the keyword Zero Energy Building.

It is a goldmine of people insight, I can use to create fresh, ultra-useful content, products, and services. The kind people, like you, really want.

People searches are the most important dataset ever collected on the human psyche. Therefore, this book is a live product, and constantly updated by more and more answers for new questions about Zero Energy Building, asked by people, just like you and me, wondering about this new emerging technology and would like to know more about it.

The approach for writing this book is to get a deeper level of understanding of how people search around Zero Energy Building, revealing questions and queries which I would not necessarily think off the top of my head, and answering these questions in super easy and digestible words, and to navigate the book around in a straightforward way.

So, when it comes to writing this book, I have ensured that it is as optimized and targeted as possible. This book purpose is helping the people to further understand and grow their knowledge about Zero Energy Building. I am trying to answer people’s questions as closely as possible and showing a lot more.

It is a fantastic, and beautiful way to explore questions and problems that the people have and answer them directly, and add insight, validation, and creativity to the content of the book – even pitches and proposals. The book uncovers rich, less crowded, and sometimes surprising areas of research demand I would not otherwise reach. There is no doubt that, it is expected to increase the knowledge of the potential readers’ minds, after reading the book using this approach.

I have applied a unique approach to make the content of this book always fresh. This approach depends on listening to the people minds, by using the search listening tools. This approach helped me to:

Meet the readers exactly where they are, so I can create relevant content that strikes a chord and drives more understanding to the topic.

Keep my finger firmly on the pulse, so I can get updates when people talk about this emerging technology in new ways, and monitor trends over time.

Uncover hidden treasures of questions need answers about the emerging technology to discover unexpected insights and hidden niches that boost the relevancy of the content and give it a winning edge.

The building block for writing this book include the following:

(1) I have stopped wasting the time on gutfeel and guesswork about the content wanted by the readers, filled the book content with what the people need and said goodbye to the endless content ideas based on speculations.

(2) I have made solid decisions, and taken fewer risks, to get front row seats to what people want to read and want to know — in real time — and use search data to make bold decisions, about which topics to include and which topics to exclude.

(3) I have streamlined my content production to identify content ideas without manually having to sift through individual opinions to save days and even weeks of time.

It is wonderful to help the people to increase their knowledge in a straightforward way by just answering their questions.

I think the approach of writing of this book is unique as it collates, and tracks the important questions being asked by the readers on search engines.

Acknowledgments

Writing a book is harder than I thought and more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. None of this would have been possible without the work completed by prestigious researchers, and I would like to acknowledge their efforts to increase the knowledge of the public about this emerging technology.

Dedication

To the enlightened, the ones who see things differently, and want the world to be better -- they are not fond of the status quo or the existing state. You can disagree with them too much, and you can argue with them even more, but you cannot ignore them, and you cannot underestimate them, because they always change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones or amateur, others see genius and innovators, because the ones who are enlightened enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do, and lead the people to the enlightenment.

Epigraph

A Zero Energy Building (ZEB), also known as a Net Zero Energy (NZE) building or a Zero Net Energy (ZNE) building, is a building with net zero energy consumption. This means that the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis is equal to the amount of renewable energy created on the site or in other definitions by renewable energy sources offsite, using technology such as heat pumps, high efficiency windows and insulation, and solar panels. Other names for this type of building include a Zero Net Energy During their lifetimes, these structures should be able to release into the atmosphere an amount of greenhouse gases that is lower, on average, than that of comparable non-ZNE structures. There are times when they emit greenhouse gases and utilize nonrenewable sources of energy, but there are also times when they decrease the use of energy and the generation of greenhouse gases in other places by the same amount. The pursuit of zero-energy buildings is motivated not only by a desire to have a less negative influence on the surrounding environment, but also by a desire to save money. The financial viability of zero-energy buildings is ensured by the availability of tax benefits and savings on energy expenditures. The virtually Zero Energy Building (nZEB) initiative is a similar idea that has been accepted and executed by the European Union and other cooperating nations. The objective of the initiative is to have all newly constructed buildings in the area comply with the nZEB criteria by the year 2020.

Table of Contents

Copyright

Bonus

Preface

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Epigraph

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Zero-energy building

Chapter 2: Solar energy

Chapter 3: BedZED

Chapter 4: Solar water heating

Chapter 5: Energy development

Chapter 6: Sustainable energy

Chapter 7: Low-energy house

Chapter 8: Energy-plus building

Chapter 9: Passive house

Chapter 10: Sustainable architecture

Chapter 11: Microgeneration

Chapter 11: Hybrid power

Chapter 9: Micro combined heat and power

Chapter 14: Solar air conditioning

Chapter 15: Solar power

Chapter 15: Solar power

Chapter 17: Photovoltaic thermal hybrid solar collector

Chapter 18: Creative Energy Homes

Chapter 19: Zero carbon housing

Chapter 20: ENERPOS

Chapter 21: Zero heating building

Epilogue

About the Author

Coming Soon

Appendices: Emerging Technologies in Each Industry

Chapter 1: Zero-energy building

A building with net zero energy consumption is referred to as a Zero Energy Building (ZEB), a Net Zero Energy Building (NZE), or a Zero Net Energy Building (ZNE). This means that the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis is equal to the amount of renewable energy created on the site. Other names for this type of building include a Net Zero Energy Building (NZE) or a Zero Net Energy Building (ZNE).

Because of the tendency for terminology to differ across nations, agencies, cities, towns, and reports, it is vital to have a comprehensive awareness of this idea and its many employments in order to have a flexible understanding of clean energy and renewables. The International Energy Agency and the European Union most often use the term Net Zero Energy, whereas zero net is mostly used in the United States.

The typical structures that are in compliance with building codes account for the emission of a large portion of greenhouse gases and utilize forty percent of the total energy derived from fossil fuels in the United States and the European Union. To fight such a high energy demand, an increasing number of buildings are beginning to follow the carbon neutrality concept. This principle is seen as a strategy to minimize carbon emissions and reduce dependency on fossil fuels. Even while the number of zero-energy buildings in industrialized nations is still relatively small, the relevance and appeal of these structures is growing.

The vast majority of zero-energy buildings store their excess energy on the electrical grid; however, some zero-energy buildings are not connected to the grid and others contain energy storage locally. The structures are often referred to as low energy homes or energy-plus buildings, depending on their level of efficiency. These structures generate their own energy on-site via the use of renewable sources of power such as solar and wind, while also decreasing their total energy consumption through the use of highly efficient lighting and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. The objective of achieving zero net energy consumption is becoming increasingly achievable as the cost of renewable energy sources continues to fall and the price of conventional fossil fuels continues to rise.

The progress that has been achieved in new energy technologies as well as construction methods has been mainly responsible for making the creation of contemporary structures that use zero energy feasible. These include highly insulating spray-foam insulation, solar panels with a high efficiency rating, heat pumps with a high efficiency rating, and triple- and quadruple-glazed windows with a low emissivity rating and high levels of insulation. Academic research, which gathers exact energy performance data on conventional and experimental buildings and offers performance characteristics for sophisticated computer models to estimate the effectiveness of engineering designs, has also greatly contributed to the advancement of these advances.

Buildings that use no electricity at all may be integrated into smart grids. The following is a list of some of the benefits that these structures offer::

The incorporation of various forms of renewable energy sources

Integration of electric cars that connect into the grid is referred to as vehicle-to-grid integration.

Concepts of zero energy use are put into action.

Despite the fact that the notion of net zero may be applied to a broad variety of resources, such as water and trash, energy is often the first resource that is targeted because of its importance:

The cost of energy, in particular electricity and forms of fuel used for heating such as natural gas or heating oil, is high. Therefore, lowering the amount of energy used may save money for the owner of the property. Water and garbage, on the other hand, are quite affordable for the individual owner of a building.

Carbon emissions are associated with the use of energy, primarily electricity and fuel for heating. Consequently, cutting down on energy use is one of the most effective ways to lower the building's overall carbon footprint.

There are well-established methods that may considerably decrease the amount of energy that buildings consume as well as their carbon imprint. These include installing solar panels on the roof, replacing furnaces with heat pumps, installing windows with low emissivity, triple or quadruple glazing, and installing insulation in the walls and ceilings.

There are government-sponsored subsidies and tax breaks in some countries for installing heat pumps, solar panels, triple or quadruple-glazed windows and insulation. These measures significantly reduce the amount of money that a building owner will have to spend in order to convert their structure into a net-zero energy building.

However, there is still a significant amount of pollution connected with a building's embedded carbon, even if the introduction of zero-energy buildings makes buildings more energy efficient and slows the pace at which carbon emissions are produced once the structure is operational.

In spite of the fact that they all have the same name, zero net energy may have a number of different meanings depending on the context. The way the word is used in North America and Europe is particularly distinct from one another.

Zero net site energy consumption

In this particular kind of ZNE, The quantity of energy required by the structure is equivalent to the amount of energy supplied by the renewable energy sources located on the property.

The United States of America, zero net energy building generally refers to this type of building.

Zero net source energy usage

This ZNE creates exactly the same amount of energy that is used, including the energy that is required to transfer the energy to the building. This category takes into account energy losses that occur during the production and transmission of electrical power. These ZNEs are required to produce more power than structures that use zero net site energy.

Net zero energy emissions

A zero energy building, also known as a zero carbon building (ZCB) or a zero emissions building, is widely understood to be a structure that emits zero net energy and is not located in either the United States or Canada (ZEB). According to this definition, the quantity of carbon emissions that are created through the usage of fossil fuels either on-site or off-site are balanced off by the amount of renewable energy that is produced on-site. Other definitions take into account not just the carbon emissions produced by the building while it is occupied, but also the carbon emissions produced during the building's construction and the embodied energy of the structure. Some people question whether or not the carbon emissions caused by traveling to and from the building should be included into the calculation as well. Recent work in New Zealand has kicked off an initiative to integrate building user transport energy inside the frames of zero energy buildings.

Net zero cost

In this kind of structure, the cost of acquiring energy is offset by revenue earned from the sale of electricity produced on-site to the local power grid, which more than covers the cost of purchasing energy. This status is determined by the manner in which a utility credits a building's net power production as well as the utility rate structure used by the building.

Zero energy consumption net off-site

A structure may be designated a Zero Energy Building (ZEB) if it derives one hundred percent of the energy it consumes from non-fossil fuel sources, even if the power is produced in another location.

Off-the-grid

Stand-alone zero-energy buildings (ZEBs) that are not linked to an off-site energy utility facility are referred to as off-the-grid structures. They need the production of renewable energy to be dispersed and the capacity of energy storage (for when the sun is not shining, wind is not blowing, etc.). A construction idea known as an energy autarkic home is one in which the equilibrium between an individual's personal energy consumption and output may be maintained on an hourly or even more frequent basis. Off-grid living is possible in homes that include energy independence.

Net Zero Energy Building

Based on scientific analysis within the joint research program Towards Net Zero Energy Solar Buildings

Positive Energy District

Positive Energy Districts (PED) are districts or other metropolitan regions that create at least as much energy on a yearly basis as they use. These districts represent an expansion of some of the ideas of zero-energy buildings to a level that is applicable to a whole city district. It is possible to share resources, manage energy efficiency systems across a large number of buildings, and achieve economies of scale if full positive energy districts are developed rather than individual buildings. This is the rationale behind the development of positive energy districts.

A physical boundary, which determines which renewable resources are considered (such as those in the building's footprint, on-site, or even off-site) respectively how many buildings are included in the balance (single building, cluster of buildings), and a balance boundary, which determines which energy uses are included in the analysis, are both part of the building system boundary. The building system boundary is split into two parts (e.g. heating, cooling, ventilation, hot water, lighting, appliances, IT, central services, electric vehicles, and embodied energy, etc.). It is important to note that the various options for the supply of renewable energy can be ranked in order of priority (for example, by the amount of effort required for transportation or conversion, availability over the course of the building's lifetime, or replication potential for the future, etc.), which results in the formation of a hierarchy. It's possible to make the case that resources located inside the building footprint or on-site should be prioritized over supply possibilities that come from off-site.

The weighting system takes the physical units of the various energy carriers and converts them into a standard metric (site/final energy, source/primary energy renewable parts included or not, energy cost, equivalent carbon emissions, and even energy or environmental credits), which then enables the comparison and compensation of these various energy carriers with one another in a single balance (e.g. exported PV electricity can compensate for imported biomass). The relative value of different energy carriers may be affected, as well as the amount of energy producing capacity that is needed, by conversion and weighting variables that are subject to political influence and, as a result, might be asymmetrical or time-dependent.

It is common practice to presume that the balancing period will be one year (suitable to cover all operation energy uses). A shorter time frame, such as monthly or seasonal, might also be taken into consideration, in addition to striking a balance across the whole of the life cycle (including embodied energy, which could also be annualized and counted in addition to operational energy uses).

The energy balance may be achieved by either of these two sorts of balances: 1) The equilibrium between the amount of energy delivered/imported and that which is exported (monitoring phase as self-consumption of energy generated on-site can be included); 2) Strike a balance between the (weighted) demand for energy and the (weighted) supply of energy (during the design phase, taking into account regular end users' temporal consumption habits, for example).

for lighting, appliances, etc.- are absent).

Alternatively, It is conceivable that a yearly balance might be calculated based on monthly net values, with the monthly residuals serving as the single component in the calculation.

This can be seen either as a load/generation balance or as a special case of import/export balance where a virtual monthly self-consumption is assumed (see figure 2 and compare).

In addition to their energy balance, Net Zero Energy Buildings can be defined by their capacity to either match the load of the building with the energy that it generates (a process known as load matching) or to work in a way that is beneficial to the requirements of the grid infrastructure in the surrounding area (grind interaction). Both of these things are possible to be conveyed by appropriate indicators, which are solely meant to be used as evaluation tools.

In most cases, the measures that are taken during the design phase of a building to lessen its overall energy usage end up being the ones that save the most money. Currently, all of the technology that are required to make buildings that use zero energy are readily accessible off-the-shelf.

It is possible to model how a building will perform with a variety of design variables such as building orientation (relative to the daily and seasonal position of the sun), window and door type and placement, overhang depth, insulation type and values of the building elements, air tightness (weatherization), the efficiency of heating, cooling, lighting, and other equipment, as well as the environment in which the building is located. Sophisticated 3-D building energy simulation tools are available. These simulations allow the designers to estimate the economic and financial consequences of the building's cost benefit analysis, or even more appropriately – its life-cycle evaluation. Additionally, these simulations assist the designers forecast how the structure will function before it is completed.

Structures that use zero energy are those that include considerable energy-saving elements into their design. Utilizing high-efficiency equipment (such heat pumps rather than furnaces, for example) is one way to cut down on the amount of energy needed for heating and cooling. Heat pumps are approximately four times as efficient as furnaces. Additional insulation (especially in the attic and in the basement of houses), high-efficiency windows (such as low-emissivity, triple-glazed windows), draft-proofing, high efficiency appliances (particularly modern high-efficiency refrigerators), high-efficiency LED lighting, passive solar gain in the winter and passive shading in the summer, natural ventilation, and other techniques. Heat pumps are approximately four times as efficient as furnaces. These characteristics shift according to the various climatic zones where the building is carried out. The use of water conservation fixtures, heat recovery units on waste water, the utilization of solar water heating, and the utilization of high-efficiency water heating equipment are all ways in which the water heating loads may be decreased. In addition, the use of skylights or solar tubes for daylighting may provide the whole house with one hundred percent of the daily illumination it needs. Fluorescent and LED lighting are usually used to illuminate the nighttime environment since they use up to