Zero Energy Building Design Strategies

The assignment delves into the critical aspects of designing zero energy buildings. It emphasizes the significance of incorporating energy-efficient strategies during the design phase to minimize construction costs and achieve sustainable energy consumption. The document analyzes various design considerations and discusses their impact on the overall performance of zero energy homes.

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Abstract
The popular zero energy project in home construction is becoming a popular practice. The net
zero energy requires a sum of the embodied energy which has been mainly due to the
construction of the building as well as the different operations that are set for consumption of
daily energy and the maintenance. For this, the buildings get more energy generally from the
grid with buildings that produce a surplus of energy over the year with energy and buildings.
The buildings make use of the electrical grid for the storage of energy which are found to be
independent of the grids as well. Change in climate in the current time is becoming the most
pressing challenge and so zero energy has been able to bring the change in the energy and
construction technologies.

Contents
Abstract......................................................................................................................................2
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Discussion..................................................................................................................................4
Evaluation of low/zero carbon design technology covering following points: -.......................4
Selection of low carbon construction materials......................................................................4
Innovative construction process.............................................................................................5
Management of operative energy consumption and consumption behaviour........................5
Choice of renewable energy systems.....................................................................................6
Recycle and reuse...................................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
Reference....................................................................................................................................9

Introduction
The zero-energy building is the total amount of energy which has been used by the building
based on the amount of renewable energy. This tends to contribute towards the less overall
greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. The net zero energy has been mainly about the energy
which is for the operations that handles the consumption related to daily energy with
maintenance. Along with this, all the energy related to the wastes and the disposals is
evaluated for the on-site supply. (Attia et al., 2013). This also means that big savings for the
bigger profit and buyers for the construction business. The concept of zero energy project
also has many resources for the cost effective zero energy home in building as well as in
design.
Discussion
Low carbon construction materials
The low carbon bricks, green concrete, green tile and the recycled metals are some of the
possible materials for the low carbon construction. The low carbon buildings have been
mainly for reducing the emissions of the GHG (Green House Gas) which is mainly released
at the time of construction, operation, renovation and the deconstruction process. Hence, the
materials which are required for the manufacturing needs to be properly used with recycling
the same, reducing the material quantity. The usage of the solar, wind, low impact hydro is
some of the measures which could be able to reduce the emissions of GHG. A proper
development and usage of the green power, carbon offsets and the GHG reductions help in
measuring and handling the reports to reduce the building emissions with adopting the
strategies which are effective. To accomplish the effective use of energy along with zero
energy design completely departs in significant manner from traditional construction practice.
(da Graça et al., 2012).

There is sophisticated 3D based building energy focus on the low carbon bricks with the
rolling out for the mass production where the fly ash is a fine glass powder which consists of
silica, iron and alumina. The green concrete is to form the conventional concrete that has
been mainly set with the different by-products. (Deng et al., 2014). They are substituted with
the aggregates of the washed copper slag, granite by the recycling with demolished debris.
There is a proper recycling of the metals with production process that is highly carbon
intensive. The life cycle performance of metal products could be set to reduce the production
energy with working over maintaining the properties. The utilisation of the metal products
without completely recycling helps in re-moulding to the different and new products like the
columns of the steel or any beam.
Innovative construction process
The innovative construction process could be through minimising the material which is used
for the construction with completely recycling and reusing the product. This is set with

effectiveness and working towards the use of the renewable energy. Some of the innovation
could be in the grid optimisation, storage of energy and working over the connections where
the electricity is produced from the natural gas or the electric standards. They are for the on-
site energy generation which tends to exceed the building energy requirements where there
has been excess of the production offsets with excess demands that results in the net energy
consumption which is 0.
Since almost 41% percent of energy used in US is for the buildings, if net zero energy
building become utterly ubiquitous, there will be a major decrease in US consumption of
fossil fuel & energy (Doiron et al., 2011). The use of the designs like the high-performance
envelopes, air barrier systems, daylighting, sun controlling and shading devices. A proper
evaluation needs to be for the passive solar heating and the natural ventilation as well. This
will further immensely reduce the environmental damage and assist in reducing the
greenhouse based gas emissions. To ensure people completely acknowledge the threat
associated with climate and therefore the importance of net zero energy construction comes
into picture.

Management of operative energy consumption and consumption behaviour
It is important to focus on the non-domestic buildings which account for the carbon dioxide
emissions. Here, the consumption could be from housing both the energy supply and the
household demand for energy. This could be managed through the energy efficiency which is
affected by building an envelope and appliances along with installing the heating and cooling
systems. The effective management of the energy systems and the appliances operate in home
with the decarbonisation of the energy supply. This is important for the for the generation and
storage options. The smart grids effectively take hold of the small-scale generators into the
network. The housing energy performance works over the number of factors which include
the airtightness of shell, insulative capacity of the shell, thermal bridging, heating and cooling
of the systems. For passive house, a building need to focus on the different conditions like the
designing and the material. The total primary energy consumption for heating, hot water and
electricity should be more than 120Kwh/m2 (Kapsalaki and Leal, 2011).
The central heating, ventilation and the air conditions system (HVAC) is considered to be
used in the large buildings with the major impact on the space heating, cooling and the
ventilation demands. This is set to achieve the higher energy performance with time

sensitivity to the building heating and cooling the energy needs. The energy evaluation
methodology is based on quantifying and working over the assess of effectiveness and
economic benefits. This will help in setting the barriers to the energy savings as well.
Choice of renewable energy systems
The solar photovoltaic is considered the clean and the cost competitive energy source which
is considered important for the PV panels. This also require a lesser maintenance where the
technology is attractive with costs of PV systems that tends to decrease in the recent times.
They are also for building and occupy the unused rooftop areas. The use of the car parking
space is set with producing the energy with proper protection to the cars and the individuals.
Here, PV installation is to integrate the building architecture with building integrated
photovoltaics. They are depending upon how the system will be able to cover the energy

needs of the building. This also includes the different technical potential which cover 50% of
the rooftops with photovoltaics. (Leckner and Zmeureanu, 2011).
Moreover, the concept of daylighting along with skylights can further provide hundred
percent of daytime illumination within the parameters of home. Night-time illumination is
normally done with LED based lighting that uses almost one third or even less power than
any incandescent lights without adding any unwanted level of heat (Torcellini, et al., 2006).
Recycle and reuse
The main of the concept is sustainable construction along with green building and sustainable
architecture which is used with resources in a more effective manner and also reduce the
building negative influence on the culture. (Marszal et al., 2011). There are some of the
unique things which could be recycled or reused like the wooden wall panel, stackable chairs,
doors, shelving and the green roof plants. The main goal is to incorporate the sustainability
through the lifecycle of renovation with the reduced carbon footprint to achieve the net zero
energy goal. The renovation in the building will be also for the promotion of best practices in
sustainability and creative recycling. (Thomas and Duffy, 2013). With the renewable, onsite
thermal energy, there are some effective use of biomass and the other similar products which
could be used for the space heating, service water heating etc.
The zero-waste landfill is about the diversion of the waste from the disposal for the landfill.
The business is about the handling the waste with reducing the material consumption and

waste with proper reusing of the materials, recycling, compositing and using the different
anaerobic digestion. This will facilitate a proper designing and managing of the products and
processes in an effective manner.
Conclusion
The concept of net zero energy performance along in high performance homes take help from
a number and kind of materials as well as construction practices which is not found in the
traditional form of construction. The designers as well as the architects may or may not
discuss specific energy based details or can further neglect to make specific decision
associated with the energy based performance strategies at the time of design phase and the
outcome is with the added costs for the builders (Voss et al., 2011). For gaining success in
zero energy projects, the designers and architects together with construction team must get
familiar with all the steps to cost effective zero energy home construction and pay special
significance to design strategies along with discussing them in detail on the design plans as
required.

Reference
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