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Article history:
Received 28 August 2012
Received in revised form
28 January 2013
Accepted 29 January 2013
Available online xxx
Buildings account for a signicant proportion of the total energy and carbon emissions worldwide, and
play an important role in formulating sustainable development strategies. There is a growing interest in
ZEBs (zero energy buildings) in recent years. Several countries have adopted or considering establishing
ZEBs as their future building energy targets to help alleviate the problems concerning the depletion of
energy resources and the deterioration of the environment. Broadly speaking, ZEBs involve two design
strategies e minimizing the need for energy use in buildings (especially for heating and cooling) through
EEMs (energy-efcient measures) and adopting RETs (renewable energy and other technologies) to meet
the remaining energy needs. This paper reviews the works related to these two strategies. EEMs include
building envelopes, internal conditions, and building services systems; RETs cover photovoltaic/buildingintegrated photovoltaic, wind turbines, solar thermal (solar water heaters), heat pumps, and district
heating and cooling. Issues pertaining to sustainable development implications and further research
work required are also highlighted. These include life-cycle cost and environmental impacts, climate
change and social policy issues.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Zero energy buildings
Energy-efcient measures
Renewable energy technologies
Sustainable development
1. Introduction
It is generally believed that our climate is changing, and there is
a growing concern about the increase in energy use and its adverse
effects on the environment. Consider the two largest energyconsuming countries e China and the United States e for instance.
In China, during 1978e2010 total primary energy consumption
increased markedly from 0.57 to 3.25 billion tonnes of oil equivalent (an average annual increase of 5.6%); and in 2009, China
overtook the United States to become the largest energy consumer
[1e5]. Although carbon emissions per capita in China are low, its
total energy-related carbon emissions reached 6.1 Giga tonnes (Gt)
overtaking the US (5.7 Gt) in 2007, and have been projected to reach
over 10 Gt in 2050 [6,7]. When the life-cycle energy use and
emissions footprint are considered, buildings account for a significant proportion of the energy-related emissions. In addition to the
energy used for operation, buildings embody the energy used in the
mining, processing, manufacturing and transporting of the building
materials, and the energy consumed in the construction and
decommissioning of the buildings. This embodied energy, together
with the energy used during the life span of a building constitutes
the life-cycle energy and emissions footprint. It has been estimated
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 852 3442 7606; fax: 852 3442 0427.
E-mail address: bcexem@cityu.edu.hk (J.C. Lam).
0360-5442/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.01.070
Please cite this article in press as: Li DHW, et al., Zero energy buildings and sustainable development implications e A review, Energy (2013),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.01.070
Table 1
Summary of recent ZEBs case studies.
Region/country/city
Reference
Building
Energy-efcient measures
Cincinnati
Denmark
[17]
[19]
Factory, ofce
Residential
Hong Kong
Las Vegas
[20]
[21]
Residential
Residential
[22]
[23]
Residential
Residential
Please cite this article in press as: Li DHW, et al., Zero energy buildings and sustainable development implications e A review, Energy (2013),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.01.070
Table 2
Summary of recent works on energy-efcient measures applied to buildings.
Country/city/climate
Reference
Building
[29]
Residential
[30]
Ofce
[27,31,32]
Ofce
[33e35]
Residential
[36]
[37]
United Kingdom
[38]
Residential
Non-residential
(ofce, hotel,
school, etc.)
Residential
Thermal insulation, low-emissivity glass and double glazing, high energy efciency appliances
(especially for cooling-dominated climates).
Thermal insulation (less effective in cooling-dominated climates), lower WWR
(window-to-wall ratio), reective glass, lower LLD (lighting load density,
particularly effective in cooling-dominated climates).
Thermal insulation (effective in severe cold and cold climates), double and triple glazing,
lower WWR, raise summer SST (set point temperature), lower LLD, improve chiller
COP (coefcient of performance).
Thermal insulation, thermal mass, reective coating windows, lower WWR, solar shading,
9e19% reduction in cooling load and 11e29% reduction in peaking cooling demand.
Thermal insulation, thermal mass, double glazing, lower WWR, daylighting, 28% reduction
Thermal insulation, low-emissivity windows, solar shading, daylighting in CO2 emissions.
[39,40]
Ofce
[41]
General, no specic
building type
Switzerland
[42]
Ofce
[43]
Ofce
Thermal insulation, cavity wall, double glazing (best option because of highest saving in
heating energy demand and lowest induced increase in cooling load).
Thermal insulation, low-emissivity glass, triple glazing, LED lighting, thermal mass with
high ventilation and solar shading help reduce summer overheating.
Traditional air-cavity wall, plus-insulated (air-cavity with additional cork covering) wall,
ventilated wall, good energy and environmental saving in extreme weather conditions in
Berlin and Palermo.
Solar shading, night ventilation, special design strategies to minimize summer overheating
and reduce the need for cooling energy use.
Solar shading, up to 40% reduction in cooling load.
stage. Generalized energy rating systems have been developed for different glazing, buildings and climates. We believe
these rating systems are valuable design tools conducive to
more environment-friendly and sustainable building development [65e68].
Reective/green roofs e heat gain through the roof of a lowrise (particularly single-storey) building can account for a
signicant proportion of the total building envelope cooling
load. Cool or reective roofs reect most of the incoming
solar heat and hence reduce the amount of conduction heat
gain. It has been demonstrated that reective roofs could
result in substantial energy savings. For instance, Akbari et al.
[69] studied 11 prototypical buildings (i.e. residential, ofce,
store, school and health care) in 11 US metropolitan statistical areas, and estimated that if all roofs were changed to
optimum reectivity, the reduction in peak demand would
be equivalent to avoiding building more than 13 power
plants of 0.5 GW capacity. More recently, Boixo et al. [70]
found that using similar technique for residential buildings
in Andalusia, Spain could potentially save 295 MWh of
electricity per year. Likewise, greening of roof tops in humid,
tropical/subtropical climates has good thermal performance
due to greater latent heat dissipation and can prevent most
of the solar heat from being conducted into the building [71].
In the context of ZEBs, however, these energy-efcient
measures might not be suitable because of the limited roof
space for installing renewable energy systems such as PVs
and wind turbines. A compromise needs to be made between
these two conicting requirements.
2.2. Internal conditions
The internal heat sources and the maximum allowable indoor
temperature have signicant inuence on cooling requirements in
the built environment [72]. A recent review of the work on the
impact of climate change on building energy use found that measures addressing the indoor design conditions and lighting load
density (LLD) could have great energy-saving and mitigation potential [73]. The former can be readily applied to both new and
Please cite this article in press as: Li DHW, et al., Zero energy buildings and sustainable development implications e A review, Energy (2013),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.01.070
Please cite this article in press as: Li DHW, et al., Zero energy buildings and sustainable development implications e A review, Energy (2013),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.01.070
Please cite this article in press as: Li DHW, et al., Zero energy buildings and sustainable development implications e A review, Energy (2013),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.01.070
technique to assess the energy efciency and emissions implications of either the buildings [132,133] or the specic renewable technologies [134,135]. There is, however, very little work
on ZEBs. A recent study on a residential building in Denmark has
indicated that, from a cost-effectiveness perspective, energy
demand should be reduced to a minimum through energyefcient building designs leaving just a very small amount of
energy requirement to be covered by renewable energy generation [19]. A new term LC-ZEB (life-cycle zero energy building)
has also been suggested to emphasize the importance of
examining the entire ZEB on a life-cycle basis taking into account both the embodied energy and the operation [136]. An LCZEB is a building in which the total energy consumed in operation plus the energy embodied within the building, its building
services and renewable energy systems do not excess the energy produced by its renewables over the lifetime of the
building. There remain many challenges to overcome in the lifecycle analysis. For example, although GSHPs have proved useful
in reducing CO2 emissions compared with electric or natural gas
heating systems, it has been argued that the reduction is marginal when other life-cycle environmental impacts (e.g. abiotic
resource depletion of fossil fuels, ozone layer depletion potential and terrestrial ecotoxicity potential) are taken into consideration [137]. It has also been pointed out that the fuel mix for
electricity generation is going to change in future subject to the
economic and political circumstances as well as the energy
resource availability, not to mention the complexity regarding
the electricity network losses in the calculation of energy savings and CO2 reduction in buildings [138e140]. These will
certainly affect the carbon footprints of the different conventional and renewable energy technologies. More work is
required.
Climate change e it is generally agreed that our climate is
changing and the temperature will rise gradually. Recent
Table 3
Comparison of 5 general circulation models for (dry-bulb temperature) DBT, (wet-bulb temperature) WBT and (global solar radiation) GSR (Ref. [144]).
City
Model
DBT
WBT
a
MBE
Harbin
Beijing
Shanghai
Kunming
Hong Kong
a
b
c
BCCR-BCM2.0
GISS-AOM
INM-CM3.0
MIROC3.2-H
NCAR-CCSM3.0
BCCR-BCM2.0
GISS-AOM
INM-CM3.0
MIROC3.2-H
NCAR-CCSM3.0
BCCR-BCM2.0
GISS-AOM
INM-CM3.0
MIROC3.2-H
NCAR-CCSM3.0
BCCR-BCM2.0
GISS-AOM
INM-CM3.0
MIROC3.2-H
NCAR-CCSM3.0
BCCR-BCM2.0
GISS-AOM
INM-CM3.0
MIROC3.2-H
NCAR-CCSM3.0
3.81
1.59
4.02
0.35
2.66
6.89
3.24
7.28
2.69
5.62
0.91
3.28
3.16
1.00
1.79
3.00
0.52
0.14
0.23
0.23
1.32
0.60
2.92
0.06
0.99
RMSE
Rank
4
2
5
1
3
4
2
5
1
3
1
5
4
2
3
5
4
1
2
2
4
2
5
1
3
6.15
3.49
5.22
2.67
8.69
7.54
4.02
7.96
3.47
8.40
1.93
4.76
4.71
2.08
5.13
3.52
1.47
3.40
1.68
3.34
2.12
2.61
3.64
1.77
2.62
MBE
Rank
4
2
3
1
5
3
2
4
1
5
1
4
3
2
5
5
1
4
2
3
2
3
5
1
4
3.21
0.16
2.77
0.29
1.65
4.59
2.44
5.58
1.86
4.35
0.63
2.70
2.51
1.37
0.86
0.52
2.23
1.32
1.87
0.59
0.36
0.18
2.45
0.69
0.84
Average scorec
GSR
RMSE
Rank
5
1
4
2
3
4
2
5
1
3
1
5
4
3
2
1
5
3
4
2
2
1
5
3
4
5.25
2.61
4.10
2.35
7.27
5.24
3.33
6.15
2.70
6.75
1.92
4.07
4.10
2.18
4.52
1.97
2.60
3.46
2.29
2.98
1.85
1.99
3.11
1.75
2.62
MBE
RMSE
Rank
MJ/m2
Rank
MJ/m2
Rank
4
2
3
1
5
3
2
4
1
5
1
3
4
2
5
1
3
5
2
4
2
3
5
1
4
1.38
0.70
1.05
3.65
1.03
1.46
2.01
1.87
4.20
1.92
2.53
4.01
4.57
5.20
2.24
0.13
4.41
3.77
4.15
4.82
2.53
6.18
5.45
5.08
3.55
4
1
3
5
2
1
4
2
5
3
2
3
4
5
1
1
4
2
3
5
1
5
4
3
2
3.98
3.32
3.83
5.69
2.90
2.76
3.09
2.90
4.81
3.93
4.01
4.80
5.37
6.03
4.15
3.56
5.79
5.41
5.50
6.76
4.50
7.22
7.01
6.37
4.59
4
2
3
5
1
1
3
2
5
4
1
3
4
5
2
1
4
2
3
5
1
5
4
3
2
4.2
1.7
3.5
2.5
3.2
2.7
2.5
3.7
2.3
3.8
1.2
3.8
3.8
3.2
3.0
2.3
3.5
2.8
2.7
3.5
2.0
3.2
4.7
2.0
3.2
P
MBE f ni 1 Pi Mi g=n (Pi prediction, Mi measured data, n 252 for Hong Kong, n 348 for the 4 mainland cities).
P
RMSE f ni 1 Pi Mi 2 =ng1=2 :
Arithmetic mean of the 6 rankings.
Please cite this article in press as: Li DHW, et al., Zero energy buildings and sustainable development implications e A review, Energy (2013),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.01.070
5. Conclusions
We have reviewed works pertinent to ZEBs (zero energy
buildings) and discussed sustainable development implications.
The conclusions are:
There is a growing interest in the potential of ZEBs to help
alleviate the problems concerning the depletion of energy resources and the deterioration of the environment. Broadly
speaking, ZEBs involve two strategies e minimizing the need
for energy use in buildings through EEMs (energy-efcient
measures) and adopting RETs (renewable energy and other
technologies) to meet the remaining energy needs.
Among the EEMs highlighted, several salient features have been
identied. First, thermal insulation is less effective in coolingdominated buildings with large internal heat loads in warmer
climates. Attention should be paid to avoid over-insulation,
which could result in an increase in energy use for space conditioning. Second, reective/green roofs might not be appropriate
for ZEBs because of the conicting roof space requirements with
renewable energy such as PVs and wind turbines. Third,
daylighting and recent advance in lighting technologies (e.g.
dimmable electronic ballasts, digital controls and LED lamps)
have great energy-saving potential. Fourth, more work on postoccupancy surveys is needed to establish whether a wider indoor temperature range would be acceptable.
RETs cover photovoltaic/building-integrated photovoltaic,
wind turbines, solar thermal (solar water heaters), heat pumps,
and district heating/cooling. In general, most of the RETs are
rather well established. However, the wide diffusion of PV and
wind turbines generation may cause, among other things, power instability and compromise the quality of existing power
grid structure. ZEBs should ideally be designed to function in
synergy with the local utility grid and not putting extra stress
on the existing power infrastructure. More work on smart
grids and grid stability is required.
ZEBs will play an increasingly important role in sustainable
development. To enhance this, more works in three areas are
required e life-cycle cost and environmental impacts analysis,
climate change, and social policy issues.
Acknowledgements
The work described in this paper was fully supported by a Public
Policy Research Exercise grant from the Research Grants Council of
the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China [Project no.
9056002 (CityU 1011-PPR-10)].
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Glossary
ASHPs: air-source heat pumps
BIPV: building-integrated photovoltaic
Please cite this article in press as: Li DHW, et al., Zero energy buildings and sustainable development implications e A review, Energy (2013),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.01.070