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How to evaluate performance of net zero

energy building A literature research

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DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2014.05.007

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 Energy 71 (2014) 1e16

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Review

How to evaluate performance of net zero energy

building e A literature research
S. Deng a, b, *, R.Z. Wang a, Y.J. Dai a
a
Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
b
Key Laboratory of Efcient Utilization of Low and Medium Grade Energy (Tianjin University), Ministry of Education of China, Tianjin, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: NZEB (Net zero energy building) is regarded as an integrated solution to address problems of energy-
Received 26 January 2014 saving, environmental protection, and CO2 emission reduction in the building section. NZEB could be
Received in revised form even possible with electricity production if enough renewable energy could be used. Moreover, various
30 April 2014
building-service systems with renewable energy sources have been widely considered for potential
Accepted 3 May 2014
Available online 2 June 2014
applications in NZEB. All of these new features extend the technical boundary of the conventional
energy-efcient buildings, attach a more profound implication to the sustainable development of
building technology, and therefore pose a challenge to evaluation works on NZEB performance.
Keywords:
Net zero energy
This paper presents a guided tour on NZEB evaluation through literature-research. An overview about
Building evaluation denitions and energy-efcient measures of NZEB is presented so that the research object and tech-
Renewable energy nology boundary can be claried for NZEB evaluation. Then, a summary of widely-used research method,
Solar energy tool and performance indicator in evaluation is provided for the methodology part. This part also in-
cludes a discussion on the application of LCA (life cycle assessment) in NZEB evaluation and LCAs role in
promoting a well-dened NZEB. Finally, potential progress in NZEB evaluation with possible develop-
ment trends is highlighted in terms of energy storage, load match and smart grid.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Commercial and residential buildings consume almost 40% of
the primary energy in the United States or Europe, and nearly 30%
in China [1e3]. In order to reduce the dependence of the building
on the primary energy, a number of studies on energy-saving
technologies have been done worldwide. On the other hand,
renewable energy utilization was regarded as reasonable solutions
to global warming, air pollution, and energy security [4]. Through
integrating the technologies of energy-efcient and renewable
energy utilization in building, NZEB (net zero energy building),
which is an innovative concept for high-performance building, is
proposed. By achieving the objective of net zero energy, energy and
environmental problems in the building section will be addressed
in an aggressive and integration way.
Plenty of initiatives and politics had been presented by
numerous countries, organizations and associations to promote the
NZEB researches and demonstrations in recent years. The IEA (In-
ternational Energy Agency) SHC (Solar Heating and Cooling
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: edward_deng@foxmail.com (S. Deng), rzwang@sjtu.edu.cn (R.
Z. Wang).
Program) approved the Task 40 (Towards Net Zero Energy Solar
Buildings) in 2008 [5]. The objective of the Task is to develop a
common understanding, a harmonized international denition
framework, tools, innovative solutions and industry guidelines. The
database of worldwide NZEBs is installed in the framework of the
Task. Demonstration projects contained in this database provide
realistic experiences in terms of design, operation and test. Similar
database work was carried out by the USA D.O.E (Department of
Energy) as well. In addition, D.O.E has launched some alliances for
NZEB and authorized by Congress in the EISA 2007 (Energy Inde-
pendence and Security Act of 2007), Net-Zero Energy Commercial
Building Initiative supports the goal of net zero energy for all new
commercial buildings by 2030 [1]. The California Public Utilities
Commission of the USA has an energy action plan to achieve net
zero energy for all new residential construction by 2020 and net
zero for all new commercial construction by 2030 [1]. Furthermore,
NZEB goals were also announced by the European Union (EU) in
2009 that all EU member states are to ensure that all newly con-
structed buildings produce as much energy as they consume on-
site no later than the end of 2018 [6]. Some similar promotion
proposals or plans for the NZEB or residential renewable energy
utilization are also presented in the UK, Canada and Japan [7e9].

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2014.05.007
0360-5442/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 S. Deng et al. / Energy 71 (2014) 1e16

2.1. NZEB denition

Symbols
As for the denition of a NZEB, until now there is no consensus
AC air-conditioning on a common expression, which can be satised by all participators
BES building energy system in this research eld. As mentioned in Ref. [10], depending on the
BSS building service system project goals and the values of the design team and building owner,
CCHP combined cooling, heating and power proposed denitions have different weights on the specic de-
COP coefcient of performance (
) scriptions. However, through research works, ideas exchange, and
DHW domestic hot water discussion during recent years, a common view is emerging that a
DSM demand side management widely-accepted denition of NZEB should be a denition frame-
EBA energy balance analysis work which contains different elements, such as: boundary, met-
GSHP ground source heat pump rics, and criteria etc. Inside this common framework, various
HEMS home energy management system participators can choose elements in different levels to form a
HVAC heating, ventilation, air-conditioning specic denition, based on individual considerations on cost, local
LCA life cycle assessment climate, environmental protection demand, or the feasibility of on-
LSM load side management site renewable energy source. In this way, the denition frame
NZEB net zero energy building which contains different levels of NZEBs for different scenarios can
PCM phase change material be helpful to put forward a roadmap or guideline for countries,
PV photovoltaic regions, associations or design groups based on their specic
REP renewable energy power demands.
RES renewable energy source The basic elements in denition of NZEB and their relation-
SC solar collector ship are shown in Fig. 1. The basic elements are building system,
ZEB zero energy building energy grid and weighting system. In order to make a clear
balance calculation for the net zero goal, a boundary need to be
claried for the building system with on-site renewable. Inside
A literature search in this eld suggests that most of NZEB this boundary, building system consumes delivered energy, such
projects did not present a comprehensive review regarding how to as electricity, natural gas, from on-site renewable and energy
evaluate the energy and environmental impact of NZEB. Not only grids, and output energy back to the grid when the REP
NZEBs denition and technical connotation, but also evaluation (renewable energy power) system generates excess electricity.
methodology is lack of summary and clarication. Thus, this article Because of different design goals, different weighting systems are
will outline a comprehensive view of NZEB evaluation with de- chosen to calculate the net energy obtained by the entire
nition, methodology and development status, so that a basic building system. For example, building owners typically care
framework for the NZEB evaluation can be obtained. Following the about energy costs, so they prefer to choose a weighting system
logic of object-methodology-trend for evaluation, a guided tour in the cost balance, rather than the energy balance. Finally,
through the NZEB-literature is presented to provide a new weighted demand and supply are compared to check whether
perspective on such interdisciplinary research topic. the net zero balance can be achieved based on the specic
technology solution. This can be considered as the operating
2. Evaluation object mechanism of basic NZEB evaluation.
In addition to the basic elements and operating mechanism,
The primary purpose of NZEB evaluation is to quantify the the denition also involves some parameters, such as: boundary,
impact of NZEB on energy and environment. However, the object is weight, evaluation period. The boundary of the building system is
needed to be claried before evaluation for two problems: not limited to the physical boundary and it even can be a virtual
one [12]. With a boundary extension from the real building foot-
(1) Denition. It refers to three basic considerations: what are print to the virtual economy range, more possible options for REP
the key elements in NZEB denitions? What is the relation- supply will become available. Consequently, denition changes
ship between key elements? And which key elements in from a narrow sense to a broad one. D.O.E has presented a
various denitions can be chosen as an evaluation indicator? comprehensive denition which covers four kinds of NZEB: site
The difference of factors in NZEB denition would denitely ZEB, source ZEB, emissions ZEB and cost ZEB [1]. The evolution of
have a direct impact on evaluation results, although deni- these four typical ZEB denitions appears to be in a similar
tion elements are limited in a scope of common view. Thus, extension trend of the boundary. The denition of NZEB with the
clarication of NZEB denition would make the evaluation widest boundary, even allows owner purchases green electricity
work more effectively with some certain factors in the object. from large-scale renewable power plant. Thus, when the boundary
(2) Energy-efcient measures. However, there still has some is xed, the type of REP system, which is on-site or off-site, can be
uncertain factors in evaluation object. Novel integration with claried.
renewable is extending the technological boundary of NZEB. Some other important parameters in the denition are metric,
Thus, the conventional evaluation framework for the building weight, period, etc. Metric and weight (also called credit) can work
with passive design or the BIPV (building integrated photo- together to convert the delivered energy and output energy into a
voltaic) cannot be adapted directly to the NZEB evaluation uniform form, for example, energy quantity, cost or emission, so
without appropriate updates. Because there is no specic that the balance comparison for the goal of net zero energy can be
description or limitation about energy-efcient measures carried out on a fair platform. In addition, period and energy types
used in NZEB, uncertainty of evaluation works will increase in (operational energy, total consumption or embodied energy)
addition to certain factors in the denition. Several repre- decide the time scale of comparing objects. For instance, the con-
sentative technologies of renewable energy utilization, which ventional denitions of NZEB are mainly based on the annual en-
are widely used in recent NZEB projects, will be introduced ergy use of the building operation, so that the aim of NZE
briey with corresponding evaluated content. commonly represents the annual balance of a grid connected
 S. Deng et al. / Energy 71 (2014) 1e16
Fig. 1. System structure and basic elements of NZEB [11].
building without a consideration of energy accounting in the whole
life cycle [13]. On the other hand, an integrated solution which can
meet the annual balance for a building may not be able to achieve
the net zero goal for every month, or some others smaller time
scales. Fig. 2 shows a case: capacity size of solar PV (photovoltaic)
generation increases with an increase of the building load. The
lowest curve (A) demonstrates that no more than 28% of the
building load can be met based on a net metering of 10 min.
Analyzing the match at the monthly level shows a maximum match
of 67%, although the annual yield fully balances the annual demand
[14]. So the period for evaluation also needs to be claried in the
denition. Given the core principle for the NZEB denition is a
balance between weighted demand and supply, different types of
balance may directly result in different evaluation conclusions. In
most cases, only two parameters: consumption of the building and
generation of RES (renewable energy source), are considered in the
net energy calculation and evaluation. Some discussions about the
other types of balance are introduced in Refs. [11,12].
Fig. 2. Impact of the time scale on the evaluation results of load match [14].
3
. . . .
Net Energy Output
Input
X
Output energyi  weighti
i
X

Delivered energyi  weighti
i
0
(1)
In addition to the literal denition, NZEB can also be dened in
the form of a mathematical equation. Satori et al. discussed the
criteria for NZEB denition and present a simplied equation to
describe the denition, which is shown as Equation (1) [11].
Federation of European Heating and Air-conditioning Associations
(REHVA Task Force) also uses a similar mathematical denition
[15]. As shown in Equation (1), these expressions are clear to be
understood that the balance between output and input energy over
a period of time should be zero, even positive, when the boundary
of building zone is xed. The limitation of boundary, period, weight,
etc. is not contained in this equation, because denition conditions
depend on designers purposes and may not be appropriate to be
limited in a constant form.
The denition can also be presented graphically, as shown in
Fig. 3. The starting point (reference building) on the abscissa of
weighted demand represents a building which is built according to
the basic energy-saving requirements of local codes. It is used as a
comparison baseline only for reference. By means of energy ef-
ciency, energy load was reduced to a low level, as points L, D and Lm
on the abscissa shown. These three points represent different bal-
ance types for load/generation balance, input/output generation
and monthly net balance [16]. Then enough credits on the ordinate,
such as the amount of electricity generated, are supplied by
renewable sources. In this case, three intersection points of supply
and demand lines can lie on a 45 line which represents different
kinds of balance can be achieved on different time scales or
boundaries. Moreover, various weighted supply, such as CO2
emission, equivalent primary energy, can be shown on the ordinate
based on the conversion calculation from energy.
Fig. 4 shows an energy ow diagram (Sankey diagram) of a
building which can also be used as a graphical denition for NZEB.
The square frame on the right side represents end-use loads,
including electricity, heating, cooling, etc., while the available
4 S. Deng et al. / Energy 71 (2014) 1e16

Fig. 3. Graphic expression of NZEB [16].

energy resources are shown in the square frame on the left side. It
illustrated that various kinds of energy, such as: electricity, thermal
energy, fuel or gas, feed in the building system for end-user. The
inputs on the top and bottom side of the energy source frame are
different renewable energy supplies. On the left side of the energy
source frame, energy sold to the grid and energy purchased from
the grid can be compared to check whether net zero energy aim can
be achieved after they are converted to a uniform metric. In this
way, the performance of the entire system, including building and
associated services system, can be rapidly evaluated through a
comparison of two energy ows.
NZEB denitions from representative researches are listed in
Table 1. In addition to the D.O.E denitions, REHVA proposes a
technical denition for nearly NZEBs required in the implementa-
tion of the energy performance of buildings directive recast [15].
Hernandez and Kenny discussed the similarities and differences of
various related denitions, and dened a LC-ZEB (life cycle zero
energy building) [13]. Kilkis introduced a new metric for net ZECBs
(zero carbon buildings) and NZExBs (net zero exergy buildings)
[18]. Status and perspectives of low energy and net zero buildings
were reviewed by Voss et al., and relevant denitions were also
discussed in theory [19]. There are two review articles present the
overview of the denition of ZEBs (zero energy buildings) in terms
of literature study and calculation methodologies [10,12]. A
consistent framework of the denition, which covers ve relevant
aspects of boundary, weight, balance, matching characteristics and
measurement and verication of NZEB, is presented in Ref. [11].
Based on the review of elements, parameters, mathematical
forms, graphical forms and related studies, it can be summarized
that denition framework may be an appropriate option for NZEB

Fig. 4. Energy ow diagram for building [17].

 S. Deng et al. / Energy 71 (2014) 1e16 5

Table 1 such as heating system, air-conditioning. Thus, BSS performance

Denitions from typical researches [1,13,15,18]. becomes an important consideration for NZEB evaluation. Energy-
Element Boundary Metric Period Balance REP type efcient measures applied in the main body of building result in an
type energy-saving of BSS and an improvement in NZEB performance.
Site ZEB II PE, E Annual R/U On-site, Off-site Thus, energy-efcient measure, which is not xed in the denition,
Source ZEB V PE, E Annual R (or P)/U On-site, Off-site, has direct impact to NEZB realization and evaluation.
purchased As shown in Fig. 5, NZEB mainly involves three kinds of energy-
Cost ZEB III Cost Annual G I/O On-site
efcient measures: passive design, service system and power
Emissions ZEB V CO2 emission Annual R (or P)/U On-site, Off-site,
purchased generation from RES. A good passive design for the building,
REHVA NZEB I PE Annual G I/O On-site which may include optimized orientation, high-performance
LC-ZEB I PE Annual R/U Em On-site thermal-isolation envelope, good tightness and well-designed
NZExB III Exergy Annual G I/O On-site
shade for windows, generally decreases the thermal and elec-
1. Roman numerals for various boundaries in Ref. [12] are employed. trical load of buildings. In order to meet the reduced loads, various
2. PEeprimary energy; Eeenergy; Rerenewable energy; Ueused energy; Pepur- HVAC (heating, ventilation, air-conditioning) systems, DHW (do-
chased renewable energy; Gegrid; Ieinput; Oeoutput; Emeembodied energy.
mestic hot water) systems, lighting systems, etc., are proposed.
3. It is noted that denitions of NZEB in Table 1 are based on the current practice, but
not all the research on this topic are covered due to a limitation of literature research The functional purpose of such systems is to efciently create a
on time and data sources. comfortable and indoor environment for occupants living. Inevi-
tably, various energy sources, such as natural gas or electric po-
wer, are needed to drive BSSs. Thus, REP system has to be installed
promotion. It can supply detailed available options for criteria from to offset the energy consumption. In this way, a NZEB could be
various participators, although an internationally agreed, simplied possible with electricity and thermal production from the
denition does not exist. Through the denitional framework, a renewable energy source, if enough energy capacity could be
basis for legislations and action plans to effectively promote the installed. The phrase of BES (building energy system) generally
NZEBs development can also be created. The participators from refers to the combination of BSS and REP system, because more
different organizations, research elds and nations can choose el- and more NZEBs choose to use some integrated systems, such as
ements from various levels to form a practical denition according bio-gas CCHP (combined cooling, heating and power), photovol-
to their own capacity, economic level, etc. taic thermal collector, etc. The renewables are utilized not only for
In addition, it is critical to clarify NZEB denition before evalu- the electricity generation, but also for the heating, cooling or
ation work, because a clear denition can provide a direct and DHW system, as a 100% renewable energy solution for sustainable
simplied guideline for the object, research method, tool, and buildings [20]. Therefore, a clear distinction between BSS and REP
performance indicator of evaluation. system may be disappearing due to more integration forms of RES
in NZEB. New conguration or integration will make BES more
2.2. Energy-efcient measures compact and reliable to NZEB.
Regarding possible energy-efcient measures for BES, Anderson
Although occupants in the building are commonly considered as has presented a pathway map for NZEB in terms of benet and risk,
the consumer of energy products, most of electricity, natural gas, as shown in Fig. 6 [21]. Most of energy-efcient measures in the low
etc., are actually consumed to drive BSS (building service system), risk zone have already been commercialized, although related

Fig. 5. Design elements for NZEB.

6 S. Deng et al. / Energy 71 (2014) 1e16
Fig. 6. Possible technologies for NZEB (original information from Ref. [21]).
integration solutions to the building still need more explorations
and demonstrations. Technologies in the high risk zone, such as:
micro-CCHP, solar-AC (air conditioning), solar assisted heat pump,
etc., which can be classied as BES technology, have been focused of
great research interests by university and research institute in
recent years. As core elements of traditional HVAC and DHW sys-
tem, refrigeration or heat pump devices employ the vapor
compression cycle to realize the thermal delivery. Although they
have been accepted as one kind of steady performance device for
the HVAC and DHW systems by most of the existed projects of
NZEB, some aws of these systems, like heavy dependence on
electricity, temperature and humidity coupled processing,
environment-unfriendly working uid, etc., inspire researchers to
propose new solutions for better performance of buildings.
Recent development of BES is reviewed in Refs. [22,23], and
perspectives for the future use of highly efcient energy systems
and efcient uses of renewable energy are presented with respect
to residential refrigeration, power generation and energy storage
[24]. Compared to the conventional HVAC and DHW systems,
technologies that integrate renewable energy utilization with BES
can further decrease consumption of primary energy in NZEB.
Some typical energy-efcient measures in BES, which have been
applied in demonstration buildings, are discussed briey below. It
should be noted that the technologies will be discussed in this
section only include HVAC, DHW and power generation in BES,
and are chosen based on case studies on regional demonstrations
and limited research experiences. Because local climates, energy-
saving standards or economical levels, etc., have direct inuences
on the technological options in NZEB, a technological framework
with diversity opening should be encouraged for more possibil-
ities in sustainable development. Actually, its nearly impossible
to present an overview about all technologies that can be used in
NZEB design. The technologies discussed in this section do not
include energy-saving passive design, lighting, appliances and
optimization control and related progress of energy-efcient
measures for building envelopes and internal conditions in
NZEB can be found in Ref. [25].
2.2.1. Solar heating
Considering the cost, solar heating is the most direct and prac-
tical energy-efcient measure for enhanced building performance
in less developed regions or countries and it widely appears in
design results for NZEB. The solar thermal utilization should be
based on the integration of SC (solar collector) into the building.
The facades of buildings can be SCs and therefore become multi-
functional. In addition, SCs can be used to enhance the appearance
of the facade when considering their esthetic compatibility.
Currently, installations of collectors on southern tilted roofs, south
walls, balconies or awnings of buildings are the feasible approaches
for the integration of SCs into buildings.
Since 1980, solar water collectors have undergone a rapid
development worldwide. In some countries, for example, China,
the annual average growth rate even reaches 30%. Until 2011, over
195 million m2 solar water collectors have been put into use in
mainland of China, which accounted for 60% of the global SC area
[26]. Solar energy has an important role to play in BES regarding the
development of the solar energy industry in developing countries.
The integration of SC modules into building facade will be devel-
oped and enforced, and interfacing technologies of solar-powered
integrated energy system with buildings will be investigated in
depth [27].
2.2.2. Solar sorption cooling
Solar active cooling is a reasonable energy-efcient measure as a
conversion from excess solar radiation on the building to a cooling
supply in summer. It can adjust the match relationship between
building load and supply capacity of the HVAC system. As a typical
technology in active thermal cooling, solar sorption cooling offers
interesting alternatives to NZEB design with less primary energy
consumption. Matured market-available sorption cooling systems
include LiBr-water absorption chiller and silica gel-water adsorp-
tion chiller. Heat source of 85  C or higher can drive a single effect
LiBr-water absorption chiller to work under the condition of the
cooling water temperature of 32  C and chilled water of 7  C. COP
(Coefcient of performance) can reach 0.6 or more. Evacuated tube
 S. Deng et al. / Energy 71 (2014) 1e16
SC is commonly recognized as a better choice than plate SC for a
single effect LiBr-water absorption chiller. The main problem with a
single effect machine is that the operation time is deeply depended
on the temperature of the heat source and cooling water. For
example, if the temperature of cooling water is above 30  C in
summer, the heat source water is needed to reach 80  C or higher,
the normal solar collector cannot meet this demand for 8 h or more,
thus cooling operation time is limited or cooling performance is
affected.
As another potential solar-assisted cooling system, solar
adsorption (silica gel-water) cooling system allows for lower
driving temperatures compared to the absorption system under the
same conditions. So the at collector and evacuated tube collector
can be used to meet the demand of this chiller. Zhai et al. proved
experimentally that a silica gel-water adsorption chiller can be
operated more than 8 h daily for continuous AC when powered
with solar water heating. The thermal COP could be as high as 0.3
when 60  C hot water is used for generation [28]. The main problem
of solar powered adsorption chiller is that it needs a large area of SC
because COP of the whole solar driven adsorption AC system is low.
And a cooling tower and a water tank are also needed to keep a
continuous operation status. So the initial cost is higher than solar
driven absorption AC system.
For a double effect LiBr-water absorption chiller, a 150  C heat
source is needed. It means that normal solar thermal collectors may
not be used for this system, some concentrating SCs such as para-
bolic trough and a Fresnel lens are considered as better choices.
Recent progress of medium temperature SCs, in which special se-
lective coating with low emissivity at 150  C, has shown that
evacuated tube SCs could yield 150  C with a solar thermal ef-
ciency of more than 40%. This may bring a good match of evacuated
tube SC with double effect absorption chiller.
2.2.3. Independent temperature and humidity control
In some regions, a combination of high temperature and high
humidity dees a remedy by conventional air-conditioning, which
is biased towards temperature rather than humidity. So if latent
heat and sensible heat for cooling can be treated independently,
energy-saving and indoor comfort can be achieved simultaneously.
For example, independent liquid dehumidication air-conditioning
system and solar-powered rotary desiccant dehumidication have
been put into practice. Some hybrid energy systems for buildings
which use desiccant dehumidication technology as an important
component were reported [29,30]. Solar thermal energy is viewed
as a reasonable heat source for the regeneration process and the
performance will be shifted if the periodic availability of solar en-
ergy can be overcome by some approaches, like high energy storage
capacity of desiccant or matched energy storage system.
A typical case about the prototype of a solar driven liquid
desiccant system for cooling, dehumidication and AC was intro-
duced [31]. The system uses 120L LiCl solution and 1000 L hot water
to store energy. Its average dehumidication capacity is 16 kW and
using 20 m2 SCs. When solar energy is unavailable, the system can
go on operating continuously for 4 h. The thermal COP based on the
heat gained from SC, is about 0.8. Air absolute humidity ratio is
reduced from 16 g/kg dry air to 8 g/kg dry air in a typical day of
August.
LiCl, silica gel and molecular sieve are three materials which are
commonly used in desiccant rotor wheel (solid desiccant system),
the regeneration temperature range of these materials is
60 w 120  C, 80 w 150  C and 160  C, respectively. Therefore, a solid
cooling system which used LiCl and silica gel as wheel materials can
employ at plate collector and vacuum tube collector to supply
regeneration heat. A typical solar desiccant wheel cooling system
was reported [32]. A seminar room of a public building in Freiburg,
7
Germany was served by a solar desiccant wheel cooling system. A
solar air collector was used as the only heat source with an area of
100 m2. The adopted silica gel rotor is designed for an air ux of
10,200 m3/h.
2.2.4. Renewable source heat pump
Heat pumps can make good use of various renewable energy or
waste heat of the energy supply in buildings [33]. Most of
demonstration NZEB projects choose a GSHP (ground source heat
pump) as a core device of HVAC system due to its high efciency.
However, application feasibility of the GSHP is needed to be
deliberately considered on the basis of the local condition of soil
temperature and character. In some areas, GSHP application may
need a good match between condensing heat released to the
ground in summer and evaporation heat absorbed from the ground
in winter. Thus, the GSHP system is partly a form of inter-seasonal
thermal storage. The energy efciency can be 30% more increased
in comparison with an air source heat pump, and the most
important thing is that GSHP can be operated efciently in cold
winter. In some areas where the air is not very cold in winter and
very hot in summer, air source heat pump might be more reason-
able especially for small scale applications.
In recent years, some factors, such as: instability, mismatch
between summer load and winter load of building, water body
protection, etc., limit the development of solar thermal,
geothermal, ground water source heat pumps. Thus, some
demonstration projects did not use renewable energy heat pump as
an independent HVAC system, but employ them as an assisted
component in the entire energy system. For instance, solar-assisted
geothermal heat pump system was applied in a greenhouse and a
residence [34,35]. A hybrid energy system which contained SC,
absorption chiller, heat pump was reported: the operation results
showed that COP of chiller was about 0.8 and cooling efciency of
the whole system was 0.2 w 0.3 [36]. Hybrid system containing
heat pump can overcome some defects of independent heat pump
system for demand of individual buildings, but it cost more than a
conventional HVAC system.
2.2.5. Power generation system
NZEB need renewable power generation to offset the energy
consumed. Although some denitions of NZEB allow the option of
purchasing green electricity, most NZEBs recently built worldwide
trend to use more self-production power from the on-site genera-
tion system. The research efforts regarding the various PV cells in
recent years had led to progress in the efciency improvement, for
example, the test efciency of single crystal Si cells has already
been above 25% [37]. At the same time, reduction in cost makes the
PV panels become a common choice for on-site power system in
NZEBs. Compared to solar PV, electricity generation from solar
thermal source, such as parabolic troughs and linear Fresnel col-
lectors, does not have a competitive price at the current stage [38].
In addition, there are several other available options for REP sys-
tems, such as: on-site wind turbine, wind power plant, CCHP of
biomass/bio-gas and even hybrid power system.
The CCHP system, which simultaneously generates electrical
power and thermal energy from a single fuel source, has been
proven interesting as a solution to increase the total efciency of a
BES and to reduce CO2 emission. Various HVAC technologies, such
as: heat pump, absorption chiller, adsorption chiller and desiccant
cooling system can be considered in conjunction with a cogenera-
tion system to make up an integrated energy system for building as
demonstration projects shown [39e42]. Due to its technical
complexity and high cost of purchase and maintaining, it is not so
competitive recently in sectors of residential building, but it is
denitely an attractive development direction for NZEB. With the
8 S. Deng et al. / Energy 71 (2014) 1e16
Fig. 7. Data ow diagram for evaluation.
development of commercializing water chiller with small cooling
capacities, it can be predicted that new market segments for CCHP
in independent (or called stand-alone) energy system of public
building and even residential building will open. CCHP has been
considered as a good option of cascaded energy utilization for
commercial buildings or district areas, a good design of CCHP
should be combined with suitable integrated energy users, thus
even cooling tower could be possibly not needed.
In addition to the electric power, hydrogen powered fuel cell is
another important power source for future buildings, especially
those driven by RESs [43,44]. Facing to the environmental emission
restrictions and oil shortage, future NZEBs probably employ
hydrogen as a substitute for fossil fuels, although the large-scale
application still needs a long-term research.
With the development of these energy-efcient measures, a
building can produce energy to offset the consumed energy, or even
have a net energy output. For the cost-saving, surplus energy can be
sent back to the utility grid where allowed by the local grid
network. At the same time, some NZEBs may still need to be con-
nected to the grid on the short to medium term, and consume the
electricity produced from traditional power plants when renewable
energy generation cannot meet the building load. Thus, the tradi-
tional electricity grid is facing a challenge in terms of feeder voltage
uctuation, transformer overload, and load mismatch in a neigh-
borhood level. A smart grid or smart energy ow will be necessary
in the near future. Moreover, the benet from energy-efcient
measures integrated with renewable in NZEB can be classied to
energy-saving, cost or emission reduction, etc., and all of such
benet are needed to be quantied for evaluation. It implied that a
set of methodology is necessary for a standard evaluation process
after a clarication of evaluated objects.
3. Methodology
Evaluation methodology for NZEB discussed in this article in-
cludes the research method, tool and performance indicator. Some
key parameters of the existed evaluation systems for the high ef-
ciency building, green building or low energy building, e.g.,
thermal conductivity value (K value) of envelope, building load,
COP of HVAC devices, are commonly adopted in the evaluation
system for NZEB. However, performance indicators of the conven-
tional evaluation have some shortages and are inappropriate to
NZEB evaluation. For instance, NZEB evaluation does not only focus
on the amount of energy consumption or even the balance aim,
because a poorly-designed building could even achieve the goal of
net zero energy per year simply by means of oversizing the REP
system. Moreover, a building, which meets the NZEB denition, but
cannot create an indoor-comfortable space, will lose its meaning as
an ideal development model of the conventional building. Thus, a
trade-off between cost and indoor comfort should be contained in
the evaluation content. Moreover, indoor comfort level evaluation
and LCA (life cycle assessment) are of great importance to NZEB
evaluation in addition to conventional energy balance analysis.
3.1. Research method
A typical evaluation process was shown in Fig. 7 as well as
research methods involved. The whole life cycle of the building can
be divided into 4 processes, including: preparation (manufacture
and transport), construction, maintenance and demolition. The
consumed primary energy during the entire lifetime includes:
embodied energy, operation energy and recycling energy. In order
to evaluate a NZEB performance, performance data from experi-
ments or/and simulations are necessary. The common research
works follow the similar process: the design results are rstly
validated by simulation, and couple operational performance be-
tween building and energy system can be predicted. The con-
struction can realize the design scheme. After that, performance
parameters and curves of components in BES can be obtained
through commissioning (for commercial or residential building) or
experiments (for test building). The performance data, especially
obtained from steady or semi-steady state tests, is then pro-
grammed into a system simulation module so that the annual
system performance of the dynamic operation can be hourly
recorded for evaluation. Finally, the evaluation is commonly carried
out in terms of the indoor comfort, system efciency, balance for
net zero energy, techno-economic and LCA. The common research
methods in building performance research, such as experiment and
simulation, can be considered as a preparing work for evaluation.
The realization of an evaluation process is highly dependent on
available performance data, such as electricity consumption of
NZEB. Thus, an accurate performance analysis can be considered as
a meaningful preparing for evaluation, while the evaluation can
also be accepted as a deeper analysis in a specic view. As
mentioned, the main research methods in most studies are
experiment and simulation. Commonly, the experiment can
directly provide performance data about the NZEB through mea-
surement of meters and sensors, but the experiment cannot be
easily repeated under the exact same conditions of the external
environment, especially for the on-site test of demonstration
 S. Deng et al. / Energy 71 (2014) 1e16
houses. Hence, the simulation is widely applied as an assisted
method to obtain enough performance data, for a whole year
(8760 h) or even a whole lifetime. The simulation model of NZEB
with the energy system, which is veried by the real measured data
from the experiment under some specic climate conditions, is
preferred to be used. At the same time, the veried simulation
model can be applied in various case studies for more climates,
occupancy conditions and economic scenarios.
3.2. Tools
A number of simulation tools have been developed for the
building and energy system in recent years. The functions of
summarized simulation tools can cover the passive design, active
design of energy-efcient measures, and ERP system integration of
different types of buildings now [45,46]. However, unlike the
design of the conventional building, NZEB design focuses more on
the optimization or trade-off among various design elements. Thus,
an ideal evaluation tool should integrate the optimization algo-
rithm into the conventional transient calculation of the energy
consumption. Some software and simulation modules, such as
BEopt [47] and TRNOPT [48], can be used for addressing some
optimization problems in NZEB design via built-in algorithms. With
the assistance tools, the perfectibility of NZEB projects can be
evaluated based on an optimized benchmark case. Another feature
of NZEB evaluation is about a judgment of sustainable development
for the whole life cycle, which can be reected in the aspects of cost
(affordable NZEB), net energy (positive building), and environ-
mental protection (zero carbon building). Thus, a database, which
contains the whole life cycle information about building and sys-
tem materials, or/and evaluation tool which can perform an
assessment calculation for the whole life cycle, is necessary to the
NZEB evaluation and design. Typical environmental assessment
tools for buildings, for example ATHENA [49], were introduced in
terms of software function and research object [50]. As for the
development of the ideal assisted tool, a discussion with regard to
the needs and trends in simulation and design tools of the building
and HVAC system was performed in Ref. [51]. Ref. [52] presents a
detailed literature review about BPO (building performance opti-
mization) in NZEB, which includes concept, history and algorithms
of BPO.
3.3. Performance indicator
The performance indicators applied in evaluating not only
include an energy balance factor for identication of denition, but
also include indoor comfort, economic and environmental inu-
ence factor. Because the evaluation in economic and environmental
indicator commonly involves the whole life cycle of the building,
the application of LCA is also discussed and summarized in the
following Section 3.4 as well as the corresponding improvement in
NZEB denition.
3.3.1. Indoor comfort
Indoor comfort can be considered as a precondition indicator for
the NZEB evaluation, because as a high performance model for the
building development, NZEB should provide an ideal occupies
space which has a high-level indoor environmental quality and
consequent users comfort. Several comfort and energy efciency
recommendations for NZEB were shown in comparison with
various standards [53]. The PMV (predicted mean vote) or similar
models have already been widely recognized as a comfort evalua-
tion tool or index for indoor space comfort. These indicators have
also been integrated into the calculation and output of some
transient simulation tools, such as TRNSYS [54], IES [55], and
9
DesignBuilder [56], as well as CFD (computational uid dynamics)
software for the eld simulation of indoor air, for example, Airpak
[57]. Alternatively, Givoni building bio-climate chart can be
considered as another typical tool, which is developed based on the
comfort zones dened in ASHRAE Standard 55 [58]. Some case
studies, which use bio-climate chart in the evaluation of indoor
comfort, have an obvious feature of intuitive and easy-to-
understanding [59,60]. In addition to the thermal comfort, visual
comfort and IAQ (indoor air quality) are also the important in-
dicators of quality of life in NZEB [53].
3.3.2. Energy balance
Energy balance is a core concept in NZEB denition and thus
EBA (energy balance analysis) is a basic request for the NZEB
evaluation, as annual energy consumption of a building should be
offset by the power generation from RES to meet the demand of
denition. A case study explains graphically the EBA process in
Ref. [19]. After annual distributions of energy demand and solar PV
generation are obtained via calculation, the excess power during
the summer and the shortage during the winter in NZEB are
accounted as well as the grid power. The demand is met by the
supply from on-site solar PV generation and grid power; at the
same time, the total amount of electricity generation is at least
equal to the total amount of the remaining demand supplied from
the grid. In this case, a NZEB can be afrmed through EBA based on
the basic denition in the framework. In addition to net value, NSB
(net sustainable building) status coefcient, which is a relative ra-
tio, was proposed by Bojic to demonstrate a balance relationship in
NZEB [61].
3.4. Life cycle assessment
LCA is not a performance indicator, but is a research method
used for the quantitative assessment of material used, energy ows
and environmental impacts of products. It has been widely applied
in the building industry, because it cannot only provide more
comprehensive and reasonable analysis on the energy and envi-
ronment impact of product for the whole life cycle, but also be used
to determine top design priorities and quantitatively inform sus-
tainable design decision-making for various buildings [62]. For a
building, LCA evaluation process, which is dened by the ISO (in-
ternational organization for standardization), generally consists of
four stages: goal and scope denition, life cycle inventory, impact
assessment and interpretation [63].
As for the system boundary of LCA for buildings, it commonly
includes manufacture (prepare and construction), use (mainte-
nance) and demolition stages, as shown in Fig. 7. Compared to EBA
which only focus on the operation consumption of buildings, en-
ergy consumptions for manufacturing and demolition stages are
considered in the evaluation so that the analysis can be performed
for a more reasonable and real period e whole life cycle. Thus,
embodied energy and energy for demolition are both added in the
boundary of the analysis system, besides the operating energy.
Embodied energy here means the energy utilized during the
manufacturing stage of the building, while demolition energy is the
energy required to demolish the building and transporting the
waste material to landll sites and/or recycling plants [63]. After
the goal and scope of analysis are identied, inventory analysis and
impact assessment in a life cycle can be carried out. Typical per-
formance indicators in LCA are emission of CO2, methane and
Nitrous Oxide, etc., initial and operating cost, etc. [64]. The evalu-
ated results in these available performance indicators can be ob-
tained through life cycle interpretation.
The LCA denitely poses a higher-level challenge to NZEB
design, as NZEB denition is extended to include the embodied
10 S. Deng et al. / Energy 71 (2014) 1e16
energy of building and devices together with the annual energy
use. The energy embodied within its constituent materials and
systems, thus becomes an important concern and cannot be
ignored during the design, although case analysis in literature
showed that it only takes 15e20% of life cycle energy use of
buildings [63,64,66]. Thus, NZEB in a scale of the whole life cycle (LC
NZEB) need to be redened as suggested: LC-ZEB is one where the
primary energy used in the building in operation plus the energy
embodied within its constituent materials and systems, including
energy generating ones, over the life of the building is equal to or
less than the energy produced by its RESs within the building over
their lifetime [13]. A mathematical equation of LC NZEB denition
in Ref. [13] is updated to Equation (2).
AnnualizedLifeCycle NetEnergy
=Output=
=Input=
Embodied Energy
NetOperationEnergy
EmbodiedEnergy
P P
i Output energyiweighti
i Delivered energyi
X between operating and total energy through all cases is revealed in
weighti
AnnualisedEmbodiedEnergyiweighti
i
0 (2)
Graphic denition of NZEB is updated as well and shown in
Fig. 8 based on Ref. [13]. The abscissa represents AEE (annualized
embodied energy) which is a converting value of the total
embodied energy. The embodied energy data of construction ma-
terial and BES in NZEB are presented in kWh of primary energy per
year for the service life and denominated as AEE. The ordinate is the
net operational energy which is actually the net energy in EBA
(Equation (1)). The 45 line represents a balance line on which the
net zero energy aim for life cycle can be achieved. For conventional
buildings, the annualized embodied energy should be above zero,
but the net operational energy could be negative, zero or positive,
which depends on the installed RPC (renewable power capacity).
With the technology development, the distance between building
status points and the line of life cycle balance decreases. One
optimized REP capacity can make the building status point closer to
the LCA balance line. On the contrary, an oversize REP capacity will
make the annualized embodied energy increase, so that the
Fig. 8. Graphic denition of LC NZEB.
distance to the balance aim becomes longer, although more net
operational energy can be gained.
The data transfer process of LCA for NZEB starts with data
collection. Enough information from the building owner, design
group and manufacturer should be collected primarily so that a
database of the embodied energy and lifetime of components can
be established. The embodied energy for each material, system, or
product will be calculated for the building life cycle under some
reasonable assumptions or limitations, for example, transport en-
ergy to the building site can be ignored in some LCA cases. At the
same time, consumed operational energy of building and devices,
and energy generation from RES can be obtained through simula-
tion and/or experiment. In this case, the annualized life cycle en-
ergy can be calculated and some results expressed in others
evaluation indicators can also be obtained by various transfer
factors.
A literature survey on buildings life cycle energy use was per-
formed for conventional and low-energy buildings, resulting in a
total of 60 cases under different climates [66]. A linear relationship
the study as well as some deign experiences. A similar review work
on the life cycle energy analyses is presented by Ramesh et al. The
amount of cases in this reference increases to 73 across 13 countries
[65]. The case analysis showed that life cycle energy use of build-
ings depends on the operation (80 w 90%) and embodied
(10 w 20%) energy. It also pointed out that low energy buildings
perform better than zero operating energy buildings in the life
cycle context, based on the existed data. It proved that if the eval-
uation is updated from EBA to LCA, some existing NZEB cases may
not show a satised performance in the aspect of sustainable
development. Another critical review about the life cycle analysis of
buildings in energy consumption and GHG (greenhouse gas)
emission shows that operational phase alone contributes more
than 50% to the GHG emissions of buildings [63]. As for the energy
consumption, operation consumption takes 80 w 85% of the total
amount and is the highest energy consumer. The economic-
efcient design of NZEB during the life cycle was discussed in
Ref. [67] in terms of life cycle cost and payback period. A case study
in this paper shows a low-rise building can benet from the
application of the proposed methodology at the early design stage
of NZEB. Results from these review works show that the con-
sumption of the operating energy takes the highest proportion of
total consumption in NZEB. Thus researches on building service and
REP system, especially on integrated BES, are of great importance
for NZEB design, application and evaluation. In addition, the
complexity of integrated BES can denitely extend the NZEB
functionality and perfect its performance, but may increase the
total initial cost and be negative towards LC NZEB.
4. Development trend
In regards to the development trend of NZEB and associated
technologies, several researches proposed roadmaps for different
climates or countries. An overall perspective about the possible
trajectories for energy consumption and CO2 emissions of local
residential building was presented by the SEAI (Sustainable Energy
Authority of Ireland) [68]. The roadmap towards reduced 90% res-
idential CO2 emissions by 2050 and set out 5 improved scenarios in
terms of policy, measures, technology and knowledge. The energy
efciency retrots, deployment of renewable energy, low zero
carbon technologies, and decarbonization of the electricity grid are
the main measures in the roadmap. For NZEB in India, Kappor et al.
presented a strategic roadmap which contains target, barrier and
recommendations on strategy in the building sector till the year
2030 [69]. Solar application in passive design, water heating, PV,
 S. Deng et al. / Energy 71 (2014) 1e16
and high-efciency AC are suggested technologies in this report as
well as energy-saving lighting technologies. The challenges and
opportunities for NZECB (net zero energy commercial buildings ) in
the USA have been discussed through codes and standards by Ames
[70]. In addition, natural gas application and measurement tech-
nologies are discussed in Refs. [71,72], respectively, with respect to
the roadmap and case study towards NZEB. The topic of roadmap
for NZEB development was contained in Ref. [73], but this article
concerned more about the methodology. A roadmap of the tech-
nology development for the intelligent net zero- and positive-
energy buildings (NZEB/PEB), and in particular of the essential in-
gredients of the future integration technology, was present in
Ref. [74]. In order to reach a necessary matching of generation and
consumption in NZEB under real time dynamic conditions, the
authors suggested to apply intelligent PCSs (predictive control
schemes), which are based on just enough accurate simulation
models and supported by easy installation, commission monitoring
and networking schemes.
With a rapid development of NZEB, the improvement in design
concept and specic technology will make an evaluation more
difcult. Based on a literature research and our experiences about
BES, three considerations should be taken seriously for evaluation
and design of NZEB in the future. Firstly, at the current stage,
various possibilities of integrating ERP and traditional energy po-
wer into BES should be considered in building design for a transi-
tion from conventional energy-saving building to NZEB. Secondly,
in the short- and medium-term, the highest priority for BES design
should be an integrated BES which can realize a reasonable balance
between annual consumption and RES generation via a central
control system. In this way, NZEBs dependence on primary energy
would be reduced through the optimized operation of BES. How-
ever, 100% self-sufcient NZEB without a connection to the national
grid, which is an ideal model towards future NZEB, is denitely a
challenge for the BES design of the current stage. Thus, energy
storage technology becomes necessary and critical to the self-
sufciency goal during the medium term. The co-application of
RES and assisted conventional energy resource in a building can
realize a NZEB without energy storage at the current stage, while
smart grid can also eliminate the individual unit of energy storage
with its intelligence capacity adjustment in the future.
Based on existing works and our considerations on a possible
advance of NZEB and consequent promotion in evaluation research,
several main development trends of NZEB, which are beyond the
scope of most existed demonstration NZEBs, are introduced briey.
It should be emphasized that technologies summarized in this part
are not similar to specic technologies reviewed in Section 2.2: (1)
they have not been applied in a large scale, or even in demon-
stration projects; or (2) they are more like a lumped design concept
or an integration technology platform, for example smart grid, so
they are not easily to be classied to a specic type of technology;
or (3) few evaluation researches can be found in these elds, for
example, load match and grid interaction. These energy-efcient
measures or design concepts are available options to further
motivate the potential of renewable and energy efciency in NZEB
and thereby put forward a higher requirement for NZEB evaluation.
Developing new evaluation indicators, standard evaluation pro-
cesses, online dynamic evaluation system for new trends is a
continuous progress.
4.1. Energy storage
The most important feature of NZEBs is a benet of power or
thermal input from RES. However, output performances of
renewable source utilization devices, such as solar PV or air-
conditioning system, are generally unsteady without auxiliary
11
energy sources. Thus, energy storage plays an important role in
enhancing the total efciency of BES. The instability between en-
ergy supply and energy demand, or peak and off-peak consumption
of electricity can be addressed by energy storage facilities, whether
it is electric storage or thermal storage.
There are three types of conventional storage batteries widely
utilized today: lead-acid batteries, nickel-based batteries and
lithium-based batteries. Evaluated indicators of these typical bat-
teries are energy and power density. The ranges of these two in-
dicators for various batteries are illustrated in Fig. 9. Fig. 9(a) shows
a development trend of various batteries in energy density which
has been proved true by the current data. For example, the value of
energy density per weight was predicted to reach 170 Wh/kg in
2005 for LieIon battery, while the peak value in a hooked shape
area has already been above 180 Wh/kg for LieIon battery, as
shown in Fig. 9(b).
Lead-acid batteries have been used for residential solar PV
systems for many years and may still be the best choice for this
application in NZEB because of their low maintenance re-
quirements and cost. Lithium and NiMH (nickel-metal hydride)
batteries are commonly used in mobile communication device or
laptop because of their high storage-energy density and C-rate
(Fig. 9 (b)). They are more expensive at the current stage, and can
also be used in the electric vehicle or small scale energy storage
appliances. The life of the battery array used in solar PV systems is
less than 25 years in general [77], even if it is rarely used, as the acid
contained in the battery wears down the internal components.
Thus, electricity storage devices will be the most expensive
component of the REP system in a NZEB during the life cycle owing
to maintenance and replacement costs. In addition, the possible
and foreseen hindrances of electrochemical energy storage devices,
for instance, consumption of non-renewable resources or poor
battery management, are discussed in Refs. [78], as well as ideal
renewable battery for a sustainable future.
The common storage methods for thermal energy are sensible
heat energy storage and latent heat energy storage using PCM
(phase change material) or thermochemical energy storage. The
classication of technologies, the energy density of thermal energy
storage are both shown in Fig. 10. Sensible heat storage, such as
water tank, has already been widely applied in the SC loop of direct
heating, DHW systems or even sorption cooling system. The main
disadvantage of sensible heat storage, as the water curve shown in
Fig. 10, is unsteady operating temperature (about 28 w 100  C) and
low energy storage density.
Latent heat storage means thermal energy is stored by changing
the phase of PCM. The phase change is realized through absorbing a
large quantity of heat at a constant temperature. Compared to the
sensible heat storage method, it can provide higher energy storage
density and has a steadier operating temperature. The most
promising application in buildings of this energy storage method is
integration with envelopes, such as PCM oors or walls, is intro-
duced in Ref. [80]. It can enhance the thermal capacity and the
inertia of the entire building body and therefore smooth the uc-
tuation of outdoor weather conditions to the indoor comfort.
However, super-cooling and performance attenuation of PCM may
have a negative effect on its stability and high heat storage capa-
bility and meanwhile limit the large scale application in buildings.
Through sorption and thermochemical energy conversion,
thermal energy is stored in a chemical way. The energy storage
density is mainly dependent on the amount of the material, the
endothermic heat of chemical reaction, and the extent of reaction
conversion. Although this method has a higher energy storage
density, it usually has the disadvantage of the few candidates for
suitable material, because it requires that the material must have
the characteristics of completely reversible chemical reaction, and
12 S. Deng et al. / Energy 71 (2014) 1e16

Fig. 9. Battery performance: (a) Energy density [75]; (b) Power density [76]. (*C-rate is commonly used to describe the discharge capacity of the battery.)

an appropriate reaction temperature for different heat sources. So

Fig. 10. Energy density of thermal storage technologies [79].
less application regarding this technology can be found in the
building section, also taking account into the factor of cost.
As for possible applications in NZEB, thermal storage can be
easily put into practice with regard to the initial and maintenance
cost. For example, heavy-weight solid materials have already been
widely used in building envelope for the enhanced heating as a
passive design strategy. Their operating temperatures cover a wide
range, but specic heat capacities are commonly lower than that of
water or PCM. Another typical application of solid material is rock
bed which is generally used in conjunction with solar air collector.
The storage heat during the daytime are relived at night for assisted
heating. The thermal storages based on these materials provide
advantages such as cheap and environment-friendly, although the
energy storage density is lower. In addition, various PCMs have
been commercially developed as thermal storage materials for
cooling, heating, thermal comfort, DHW and thermal source in
buildings, as shown in Fig. 11. Because heat storage and delivery
occur over a fairly narrow temperature range, PCMs are well
 S. Deng et al. / Energy 71 (2014) 1e16
Fig. 11. Storage densities of typical commercial PCMs (original data points are from
Ref. [81]).
appropriate for applications in small temperature intervals. For
instance, they can be incorporated not only as a passive system for
indoor comfort (18 w 26  C), but also in an active system for chilled
water (7  C w 15  C) or DHW (60 w 65  C) supply. The thermal
density values of typical commercial PCMs, in Fig. 11, show that the
average value is about 224 kJ/kg. For the BES integrated with RES,
e.g., solar AC, thermal storage can stabilize the uctuation of solar
source so that supply a steady driven-source for solar heating,
cooling or DHW production. Feasible PCMs for NZEB are parafn,
slat water eutectics and salt hydrates and their mixtures.
In the short term, thermal storage strategies in passive design
will be widely applied in NZEB for performance enhancement,
concerning its acceptable cost. The temperature of thermal storage
is close to the indoor temperature (18 w 30  C). In the middle term,
with the development of BES with REP, the thermal storage system
for possible heating and DHW applications and the electricity
storage for REP will be integrated into the existing building service
system for a steady and high-quality service in the HVAC, DHW and
power supply. The temperature of thermal storage reaches a range
of 45 w 65  C. In the long term, with a decrease in cost of PCM, etc.
materials, large-scale practical applications of energy storage will
appear in NZEB, for example, cooling energy storage for solar AC,
high-temperature energy storage with concentrated SC or exhaust
heat from CCHP. The temperature range of thermal storage will be
extended to a wider band. The design capacity of energy storage
will depend not only on the demand of end-user side, but also on
the supply of source side with potential amount of renewable en-
ergy input. Features of local climate, building envelope that decides
the load dynamic character, are critical factors to the design scheme
of energy storage and the specic function of energy storage, e.g.
assisted heating during the night.
4.2. Load match and grid interaction
Although the aim of net zero energy based on the annual bal-
ance are chosen as the primary evaluation indicator for most
NZEBs, a comparison of three case studies on NZEB shows that the
balance cannot be achieved if evaluation is carried out on a smaller
time-scale, such as monthly, daily or hourly period, not an annual
period [14]. Thus, most NZEBs cannot completely realize a self-
sufcient on an off-grid status (energy autonomous building) at
the current stage and still need bidirectional connection via smart
meters with the central grid. In order to evaluate the NZEB per-
formance on different time-scales, two indicators, namely load
matching and grid interaction, are developed to investigate the
coupled performance among grid, REP and building.
13
A ratio to which the building demand is covered by the
renewable energy supply is commonly used to evaluate the per-
formance of load matching. It can be improved in two ways:
adjusting the demand to the generation which is also called DSM
(demand side management), and adjusting the generation to the
needs [82]. However, load matching only focuses on the relation-
ship between demand and supply inside the footprint of NZEB. It
cannot be used to describe the interaction between NZEB and grid.
In general, this kind of interaction is assumed to be an ideal status
as the utility grid is considered as a limitless energy storage. With
respect to the fact that the quality and quantity of output power
from NZEB also depend on the local grid performance, which
means utility infrastructure cannot be assumed as an ideal and
quick-response storage without consideration of the details, such as
voltage, transmission characteristics. Thus, the concept of grid
interaction is needed to be quantied and can be expressed as a
ratio of the net grid metering over a given period compared to the
maximum net grid metering within an annual cycle. It is commonly
used to describe the average stress of the grid using the standard
deviation of the grid interaction over the period of a year [14]. Lund
et al. dened a factor, called the mismatch compensation factor, to
quantify the unbalance between generation and consumption at
the building level [83].
In addition to indicators, technological development to solve
these two problems is also in the process. The ideal BES not only
minimizes the energy consumed, but also reshapes the dynamic
load, for example, via operation and control-optimization of HVAC
or energy storage system, etc., [74]. Addressing the matching
problem in these solutions, dynamic difference between load and
generation does not become a main barrier to NZEB. Hence, the
purpose of reshape technologies is to realize a dynamic match
between the building load and power supply for NZEBs, and a less
dependence on the extra power from the grid.
DSM is a feasible technological solution for adjusting the
building load. DSM, also called LSM (load side management), is
dened as an integration technology solution for planning, imple-
mentation, and monitoring of building utility activities according to
the variation of load. It can inuence customer use of energy in
ways that will produce desired changes in the load shape, i.e.
changes in the time pattern and magnitude of the network load
[84]. DSM commonly includes six broad categories of load-shape
objectives: peak clipping, valley lling, load shifting, strategic
conservation, strategic load growth, and exible load shape.
Through DSM function, energy consumption of buildings can be
reduced and thus the service cost for utilities can be lower.
Because of on-site REP, the generalized DSM of NZEB contains an
optimized control of renewable energy power generation besides
the conventional range of denition, as shown in Fig. 12(a). By
dynamic tracking, real monitoring and storage technologies, etc., a
more stable supply from on-site generation can be provided to
NZEB for the entire year. Rather than attempting to match power
generation to consumer demand, philosophy of DSM takes action to
vary the load to match the power available [85]. Applying the
proper DSM technologies, it is possible to reduce the need of new
installed intermittent power to achieve the renewable penetration
targets.
By HMES (home energy management system), DSM and REP
optimization control can be integrated into a standard platform
which has a uniform communication and power protocol. On the
other hand, the occupants, who are also customers of energy
products, will be allowed to join energy programs aiming to opti-
mize their behavior in energy consumption and, lastly to achieve an
effective management of the local electricity network. Thus, the
functions of the ideal HEMS (home energy management system) in
NZEB can be summarized as follows:
14
Fig. 12. Power solution for NZEB: (a) HEMS & smart grid; (b) Smart grid.
1. Integration into the on-site or local distribution grids of various
power sources, such as: solar PV, wind turbine, biomass/gas
turbine, fuel cell, battery bank;
2. Reduction of peak load and extra input from the power grid, and
achieving a match between the load and on-site supply,
consequently decreasing the operational and maintenance
costs;
3. Distribution network stability, reduction in interruptions of
power supply, operation and maintenance costs of grid [86];
4. Extend the operational life cycle of the appliances, battery,
lighting, and renewable power system, create a comfortable and
energy-efcient style for occupants.
4.3. Smart grid
In addition to load side, supply side in Fig. 12(a), generally
contains power generation, electricity transmission, power distri-
bution, and control system. Some bottlenecks about current gird
interaction in NZEBs, such as: transient uctuation of the net
S. Deng et al. / Energy 71 (2014) 1e16
Table 2
Comparison between existing grid and smart grid [87].
Existing grid Smart grid
Electromechanical Digital
One-way communication Two-way communication
Centralized generation Distributed generation
Few sensors Sensors throughout
Manual monitoring Self-monitoring
Manual restoration Self-healing
Failures and blackouts Adaptive and islanding
Limited control Pervasive control
Few customer choices Many customer choices
energy, overload of transformer (e.g. on-site electricity production
cannot be consumed instantaneously via grid by neighboring
buildings) and distribution of numerous REP systems, still need to
be resolved at the level of the feeder or neighborhood. Smart grid is
considered as an integration solution to intelligently realize a
double-way communication or interaction between BES and na-
tional grids. The term smart implies that the grid doesnt only
inherit the advantages of the traditional infrastructure system, but
also has enough intelligence to realize advanced management ob-
jectives and functionalities. Some others advances in smart grid,
compared to the characteristic of the existing grid, are summarized
in Table 2.
For a smart grid connected to NZEB, electricity can be produced
by various small-scale units of energy conversion (typically 1 kW to
1 MW), which can be located very close to the end user. Three main
classes of energy sources for NZEB can be identied: on-site REP
(solar PVs, small-scale solar concentration power, biomass CCHPs,
wind turbines), on-site generation and backup (small-scale gener-
ator, fuel cell, UPS (uninterrupted power supply), batteries) and
bulk generation (conventional power plant, solar thermal power
plant, wind turbine or solar PV farm). Fig. 12(b) shows a scheme for
the connection structure of the smart grid. Both demand and
distributed generation are directly connected to the individual or
community level, so that the distribution system of bulk genera-
tions, on-site small scale REP generations, local storage systems and
relevant end-use devices, can be operated stand alone and they are
all integrated into a grid structure. Consequently, smart meters,
monitor system and updated communication protocols are needed
to make the hardware and software of the local subsystem easier to
plug into the national infrastructure. It is expected that NZEB can
denitely benet from a smart grid with respect to reducing the
grids primary energy and carbon emission factors, as well as
operational costs [11].
5. Conclusions
In this article, worldwide initiatives and politics, denitions of
NZEB are reviewed as well as development trends. Several prom-
ising and mature energy-efcient measures for NZEB, such as solar
heating system, solar cooling system, renewable source heat pump,
and power generation system, are briey introduced. In addition,
evaluation indicator and relevant research methodology are
reviewed. The possible LCA application is also discussed in NZEB
evaluation. Some conclusions are drawn as follows:
(1) A widely-accepted NZEB denition should be a framework
which has different levels of boundary, metric, criteria,
credit, etc. On the basis of local climate, living custom and
economic factor, different level denitions may be preferred
to be xed in a framework, so that specic roadmaps which
demonstrate various progresses towards NZEB can be
accepted by more participators. However, difference of NZEB
 S. Deng et al. / Energy 71 (2014) 1e16
denitions would denitely have a direct impact on evalua-
tion results, although denition elements are limited in a
scope of common view. Thus, clarication of NZEB denition
can make evaluation work more effectively with a clear
objective.
(2) Energy-efcient measure, which is not limited in the de-
nition, has a direct impact to performance evaluation of
NZEB. Because passive design of buildings has already been a
mature technology in commercial application and can be
realized in a standardized process by the simulation soft-
ware, energy system may become a focus on how to further
improve the performance of NZEB. The energy system of
NZEB, such as HVAC, DHW and on-site power generation
system, could be more efcient with the assistance of re-
newables. A clear distinction between BSS and REP system
may be disappearing due to more available RES options for
NZEB. Several representative BESs highlighted with renew-
ables, such as solar heating, have already been widely applied
in NZEB demonstration projects. New conguration or inte-
gration may make BES more compact and reliable. The
benet from BES integrated with renewable in NZEB, which
can be transferred to the energy-saving, cost and emission
reduction, is needed to be quantied for evaluation. Thus, not
only the NZEB performance, but also conversion factors are
needed to be obtained. It implies that a standard calculation
process and corresponding indicators are necessary to NZEB
evaluation. With recent advances in simulation tools and the
evaluation system, such new barriers can be overcome.
(3) Experimental and simulated studies on building and BES are
the main preparing works for the evaluation, as validated
performance results refer the evaluation accuracy. Compared
to that of the conventional building, integration design of
NZEB commonly pays more attention on the performance
optimization, energy balance and trade-off among different
design elements. Thus, the main content of evaluation works
would be adjusted as well. For examples, indoor comfort and
energy balance are typical performance indicators used in
NZEB evaluation considering its basic denition. In addition,
possible LCA application in NZEB will make the evaluation
more comprehensive, because an assessment result of the
sustainable development can be obtained in terms of cost
control, carbon reduction, environmental impact, and even
climate change. However, the LCA application in NZEB eval-
uation performs an unavoidable update in NZEB denition
and the related evaluation methodology. More works on
such research directions are needed so that a more
comprehensive evaluation framework can be established
with the development of evaluation tools, indicators, etc.
(4) The research works in three elds: energy storage, load match
and grid interaction, smart grid, can further enhance the sus-
tainable development of NZEB. They are actually integration
concepts for various technologies and make the evaluation
more complicated. More research works, such as developing
new evaluation indicator for load match and grid interaction,
standard evaluation processes for different denitions, online
dynamic evaluation system for real-time performance of bi-
direction connection between NZEB and smart grid, are
required. 100% self-sufcient NZEB without a connection to the
national grid, which is an ideal model towards future NZEB, is
highly depended on the renewables integration and energy
storage in the near- and middle-term, whereas a smart grid will
eliminate the individual unit of energy storage with its intelli-
gence capacity adjustment in the future. Such possible ad-
vances in NZEB and consequent promotions will set a new
challenge to the existed evaluation system.
15
Acknowledge
This work was supported by the key project of the Natural Sci-
ence Foundation of China for international academic exchanges
under the contract No. 51020105010.
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