Renovation process challenges and barriers: addressing the communication and coordination bottlenecks in the zero-energy building renovation workflow in European residential buildings

The implementation of Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings (NZEB) renovation packages in Europe needs to be accelerated to meet the current decarbonization goals. To achieve this level of performance, building renovation strategies should shift towards solutions that incorporate a multitude of passive and active components, increasing the complexity...

Indoor Summer Thermal Comfort in a Changing Climate: The Case of a Nearly Zero Energy House in Wallonia (Belgium)

While the potential impact of climate change mitigation measures is well documented in building sciences literature, there are only relatively sparse studies focusing on the efficiency of adaptation strategies. This paper aims to contribute to this topic by evaluating the extent to which the design of a typical nearly Zero Energy Buildling (nZEB...

Weather-induced variability of country-scale space heating demand under different refurbishment scenarios for residential buildings

The decarbonisation of residential heat through integration with the power system and deployment of refurbishment policies is at the core of European energy policies. Yet, heat-electricity integration may be challenged, in practice, by the large variability of heat demand across weather years. Current approaches for residential heat demand...

Data-driven optimization of building-integrated ducted openings for wind energy harvesting: Sensitivity analysis of metamodels

Metamodels are developed and used for aerodynamic optimization of a ducted opening integrated into a high-rise building to maximize the amplification factor within the duct. The duct consists of a nozzle, a throat, and a diffuser. 211 high-resolution 3D RANS CFD simulations are performed to generate training and testing datasets. The space...

Architectural Photovoltaic Applications: Lessons Learnt and Perceptions from Architects

Researchers have reported that despite technological development in photovoltaic technology and substantial cost reduction, there is still a narrow interest in architectural photovoltaic applications (APA). Lack of interest is correlated to various bottlenecks, and one of them is a lack of knowledge among architects on the possibilities and...

The 'new' zero-energy office building: The impact of Dutch regulatory changes on the development of energy efficient office buildings

This thesis analyses the impact of new energy efficiency regulations for the built environment on the development of highly energy efficient and zero energy office buildings. In The Netherlands energy efficiency regulation BENG and determination method NTA8800 will become effective januari 2021. BENG and NTA8800 will replace the current EPC and...

ZEHR-Ø: Service integration in façades for zero-energy home refurbishment

“The Dutch built environment - both residential properties of private owners, corporations and investors, as well as offices, schools, shops and commercial real estate – is largely outdated and not energy efficient” (Platform 31, n.d.). <br/>This research is about making the built environment more sustainable by refurbishing the building...

Computational optimization for the facade design of a nearly zero-energy high-rise office building in the temperate climate

Recently, there has been a growing interest in the energy performance of high-rises, in order to increase their energy-efficiency. The graduation project focuses on the facade design of high-rises, studying the potential for a nearly Zero-Energy high-rise office building in the Netherlands, according to the BENG requirements. The research...

Post-War Refurbishment: Making post-war era houses sustainable

The Netherlands faces climate change due to global warming and earthquakes due to gas production. To decrease both earthquakes and CO2 production, the government aims to half the gas production in the coming four years and aims for an entire stop by 2030. Over 80% of Dutch houses are heated with gas; 20% were built in the late post-war era (1960...

Integrating a hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle with vehicle-to-grid technology, photovoltaic power and a residential building

This paper presents the results of a demonstration project, including building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) solar panels, a residential building and a hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) for combined mobility and power generation, aiming to achieve a net zero-energy residential building target. The experiment was conducted as part of...

A Governance Perspective on Net Zero Energy Building Niche Development in India: The Case of New Delhi

The net zero-energy building (NZEB) concept has recently gained prominence worldwide. Large scale adoption and implementation of NZEBs would potentially contribute greatly to greening of the building sector. However, it is still at a nascent stage of niche formation. This paper aims to assess the governance context for adoption and uptake of...

Zero Energy Buildings in a Zero latitude country: Guidelines for the design of an office building in the hot-humid climate conditions of Guayaquil, Ecuador

Zero Energy Buildings intend to contribute to a more sustainable world. They approach this problem by reducing energy consumption and generating renewable energy. The considerations that should be taken into account for the design of these type of buildings in low latitudes are explored in the present research.

COllaboration for Housing Nearly Zero-Energy RENOvation: Publishable Report

The building stock has a big importance in reaching Europe’s climate goals. The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive therefore states the need for nearly zero-energy buildings. Nearly zero-energy buildings are a key aspect to reduce the energy use of the built environment. Since a large share of the building stock of 2050 currently already...

Integration of Energy and Material Performance of Buildings: I=E+M

A new methodology is proposed to assess integral performance of building with respect to energy and materials requirement over the building life cycle. Because the method builds on existing methods for Energy Performance and Materials Performance of Buildings, as defined by Dutch National Building Code, it provides an easily applicable method...

Supply-side collaboration for energy-efficient renovations

The supply side for nearly zero energy building (nZEB) renovation of owner-occupied single-family houses in Europe is suffering from a severe image problem of lack of knowledge and trust, inefficient construction processes, insufficient quality assurance and communication difficulties with home-owners. Research was done in Austria, Belgium,...

Earth, Wind & Fire: Natuurlijke Airconditioning

Collaboration between the Universities of Technology in Delft and Eindhoven has resulted in the development of a new concept for natural air conditioning of buildings. According to the so-called Climate Responsive Architecture developed in this research, the design of the indoor climate system, building physics, and services are linked to an...