A concept to maximise energy self-sufficiency of the housing stock in central Europe based on renewable resources and efficiency improvement

In this article, an innovative method for designing energy-self-sufficient housing communities is presented, emphasising proactive user participation. The overall concept for achieving such communities is first described, and then the current research is presented – focusing on the electricity generation and storage within the community. Three key degrees of freedom are exploited: buildings with very low and coordinated energy demand; strong residents participation; a large share of local energy generation with its storage in the houses. The starting point is to maximise the energy efficiency of individual buildings. As the buildings in the analysed community were built according to the obtained optimisation results and are inhabited by users, the authors assessed the actual energy consumption in relation to the design value in Design Builder software. The detected discrepancy was only 3.8%. That modelling accuracy allows further steps to achieve a fully energy-self-sufficient community. This is illustrated using a real example of a 40-building nZEB community in Poland, independent of the energy supply from the grid. The presented approach demonstrates a Smart City solution for a community of single-family houses with confirmed very low final energy demand and potential Greenhouse Gas reduction of up to 96%.