IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v14y2021i13p3760-d580442.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Net Zero Energy Buildings: Variations, Clarifications, and Requirements in Response to the Paris Agreement

Author

Listed:
  • Haleh Moghaddasi

    (Department of Architecture, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA)

  • Charles Culp

    (Department of Architecture, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA)

  • Jorge Vanegas

    (Department of Architecture, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA)

  • Mehrdad Ehsani

    (Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA)

Abstract

Buildings contribute to greenhouse gas emissions that cause environmental impacts on climate change. Net Zero Energy (NZ) buildings would reduce greenhouse gases. The current definition of NZ lacks consensus and has created uncertainties, which cause delays in the adoption of NZ. This paper proposes a Process for Clarification to Accelerate the Net Zero (PC-A-NZ) through three integrated steps: variations, strategies, and requirements. We expand on the results in published NZ literature to clarify the differences in definition and strategy. The objective of this review is to (1) distinguish current variable parameters that are slowing the acceptance of NZ, and (2) focus the discussion internationally on moving faster toward applying NZ to a larger common agreement. The publications of global NZ target assessment and energy efficient strategies will be reviewed to address the main requirements in expediting NZ’s successful progress. Our NZ review analysis highlights (1) how the existing NZ definitions and criteria differ, (2) how calculation strategies vary, and (3) how standards and requirements are often localized. The proposed PC-A-NZ will help policymakers and stakeholders to re-evaluate the existing definitions, standards, and requirements to optimize the use of renewable technologies, improved energy efficiency and electrification to speed up achieving the NZ targets. Definition: There are multiple NZ definitions that vary in source and supply requirement, timescale, emission source, and grid connection.

Suggested Citation

  • Haleh Moghaddasi & Charles Culp & Jorge Vanegas & Mehrdad Ehsani, 2021. "Net Zero Energy Buildings: Variations, Clarifications, and Requirements in Response to the Paris Agreement," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-21, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:13:p:3760-:d:580442
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/13/3760/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/13/3760/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miranda A. Schreurs, 2016. "The Paris Climate Agreement and the Three Largest Emitters: China, the United States, and the European Union," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(3), pages 219-223.
    2. Lopes, Rui Amaral & Martins, João & Aelenei, Daniel & Lima, Celson Pantoja, 2016. "A cooperative net zero energy community to improve load matching," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 1-13.
    3. Wei, Wu & Skye, Harrison M., 2021. "Residential net-zero energy buildings: Review and perspective," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    4. Salom, Jaume & Marszal, Anna Joanna & Widén, Joakim & Candanedo, José & Lindberg, Karen Byskov, 2014. "Analysis of load match and grid interaction indicators in net zero energy buildings with simulated and monitored data," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 119-131.
    5. Harish, V.S.K.V. & Kumar, Arun, 2016. "A review on modeling and simulation of building energy systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1272-1292.
    6. Lambert Schneider & Stephanie La Hoz Theuer, 2019. "Environmental integrity of international carbon market mechanisms under the Paris Agreement," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 386-400, March.
    7. Glen P. Peters & Robbie M. Andrew & Josep G. Canadell & Sabine Fuss & Robert B. Jackson & Jan Ivar Korsbakken & Corinne Le Quéré & Nebojsa Nakicenovic, 2017. "Key indicators to track current progress and future ambition of the Paris Agreement," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 7(2), pages 118-122, February.
    8. Parra, David & Swierczynski, Maciej & Stroe, Daniel I. & Norman, Stuart.A. & Abdon, Andreas & Worlitschek, Jörg & O’Doherty, Travis & Rodrigues, Lucelia & Gillott, Mark & Zhang, Xiaojin & Bauer, Chris, 2017. "An interdisciplinary review of energy storage for communities: Challenges and perspectives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 730-749.
    9. Feng, Wei & Zhang, Qianning & Ji, Hui & Wang, Ran & Zhou, Nan & Ye, Qing & Hao, Bin & Li, Yutong & Luo, Duo & Lau, Stephen Siu Yu, 2019. "A review of net zero energy buildings in hot and humid climates: Experience learned from 34 case study buildings," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-1.
    10. Lu, Yuehong & Wang, Shengwei & Yan, Chengchu & Huang, Zhijia, 2017. "Robust optimal design of renewable energy system in nearly/net zero energy buildings under uncertainties," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 62-71.
    11. Ebrahimi, Siavash & Mac Kinnon, Michael & Brouwer, Jack, 2018. "California end-use electrification impacts on carbon neutrality and clean air," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 435-449.
    12. Deng, S. & Wang, R.Z. & Dai, Y.J., 2014. "How to evaluate performance of net zero energy building – A literature research," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 1-16.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Haleh Moghaddasi & Charles Culp & Jorge Vanegas, 2021. "Net Zero Energy Communities: Integrated Power System, Building and Transport Sectors," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-33, October.
    2. Praveen Cheekatamarla & Kashif Nawaz, 2022. "Global Building Decarbonization Trends and Strategies," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(22), pages 1-3, November.
    3. Paul Plachinda & Julia Morgan & Maria Coelho, 2022. "Towards Net Zero: Modeling Approach to the Right-Sized Facilities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.
    4. Ongpeng, Jason Maximino C. & Rabe, Brian Immanuel B. & Razon, Luis F. & Aviso, Kathleen B. & Tan, Raymond R., 2022. "A multi-criterion decision analysis framework for sustainable energy retrofit in buildings," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PD).
    5. Agnieszka Napiorkowska-Baryla & Miroslawa Witkowska-Dabrowska & Natalia Swidynska, 2022. "Financing of Activities Increasing the Energy Efficiency of Residential Buildings in Poland," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(1), pages 690-712.
    6. Ali Ghofrani & Esmat Zaidan & Mohsen Jafari, 2021. "Reshaping energy policy based on social and human dimensions: an analysis of human-building interactions among societies in transition in GCC countries," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-26, December.
    7. Gamal Ali Mohammed & Mahmoud Mabrouk & Guoqing He & Karim I. Abdrabo, 2023. "Towards Sustainable Cities: A Review of Zero Energy Buildings Techniques and Global Activities in Residential Buildings," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-26, April.
    8. Tuğçe Demirdelen & İnayet Özge Aksu & Kübra Yilmaz & Duygu Durdu Koç & Miray Arikan & Arif Şener, 2023. "Investigation of the Carbon Footprint of the Textile Industry: PES- and PP-Based Products with Monte Carlo Uncertainty Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-22, September.
    9. Rui Liang & Xichuan Zheng & Jia Liang & Linhui Hu, 2023. "Energy Efficiency Model Construction of Building Carbon Neutrality Design," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-16, June.
    10. Filippos Lygerakis & Nikos Kampelis & Dionysia Kolokotsa, 2022. "Knowledge Graphs’ Ontologies and Applications for Energy Efficiency in Buildings: A Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-32, October.
    11. David Borge-Diez, 2022. "Advanced Energy Efficiency Systems in Buildings," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-3, October.
    12. Quddus Tushar & Guomin Zhang & Satheeskumar Navaratnam & Muhammed A. Bhuiyan & Lei Hou & Filippo Giustozzi, 2023. "A Review of Evaluative Measures of Carbon-Neutral Buildings: The Bibliometric and Science Mapping Analysis towards Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-31, October.
    13. Haleh Moghaddasi & Charles Culp & Jorge Vanegas & Saptarshi Das & Mehrdad Ehsani, 2022. "An Adaptable Net Zero Model: Energy Analysis of a Monitored Case Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-24, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Villa-Arrieta, Manuel & Sumper, Andreas, 2019. "Economic evaluation of Nearly Zero Energy Cities," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 237(C), pages 404-416.
    2. Huang, Zhijia & Lu, Yuehong & Wei, Mengmeng & Liu, Jingjing, 2017. "Performance analysis of optimal designed hybrid energy systems for grid-connected nearly/net zero energy buildings," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 1795-1809.
    3. Zhang, Sheng & Sun, Yongjun & Cheng, Yong & Huang, Pei & Oladokun, Majeed Olaide & Lin, Zhang, 2018. "Response-surface-model-based system sizing for Nearly/Net zero energy buildings under uncertainty," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 228(C), pages 1020-1031.
    4. Harkouss, Fatima & Fardoun, Farouk & Biwole, Pascal Henry, 2019. "Optimal design of renewable energy solution sets for net zero energy buildings," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 1155-1175.
    5. Tian, Shen & Shao, Shuangquan & Liu, Bin, 2019. "Investigation on transient energy consumption of cold storages: Modeling and a case study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 1-9.
    6. Stinner, Sebastian & Schlösser, Tim & Huchtemann, Kristian & Müller, Dirk & Monti, Antonello, 2017. "Primary energy evaluation of heat pumps considering dynamic boundary conditions in the energy system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 60-78.
    7. Juan Pablo Fernández Goycoolea & Gabriela Zapata-Lancaster & Christopher Whitman, 2022. "Operational Emissions in Prosuming Dwellings: A Study Comparing Different Sources of Grid CO 2 Intensity Values in South Wales, UK," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-24, March.
    8. Luthander, Rasmus & Nilsson, Annica M. & Widén, Joakim & Åberg, Magnus, 2019. "Graphical analysis of photovoltaic generation and load matching in buildings: A novel way of studying self-consumption and self-sufficiency," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C), pages 748-759.
    9. Giovani Almeida Dávi & José López de Asiain & Juan Solano & Estefanía Caamaño-Martín & César Bedoya, 2017. "Energy Refurbishment of an Office Building with Hybrid Photovoltaic System and Demand-Side Management," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-24, August.
    10. Binju P Raj & Chandan Swaroop Meena & Nehul Agarwal & Lohit Saini & Shabir Hussain Khahro & Umashankar Subramaniam & Aritra Ghosh, 2021. "A Review on Numerical Approach to Achieve Building Energy Efficiency for Energy, Economy and Environment (3E) Benefit," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-26, July.
    11. Chai, Jiale & Huang, Pei & Sun, Yongjun, 2019. "Investigations of climate change impacts on net-zero energy building lifecycle performance in typical Chinese climate regions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 176-189.
    12. Mohammadi, Zahra & Hoes, Pieter Jan & Hensen, Jan L.M., 2020. "Simulation-based design optimization of houses with low grid dependency," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 1185-1202.
    13. Al-Saadi, Saleh Nasser & Shaaban, Awni K., 2019. "Zero energy building (ZEB) in a cooling dominated climate of Oman: Design and energy performance analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 299-316.
    14. Garshasbi, Samira & Kurnitski, Jarek & Mohammadi, Yousef, 2016. "A hybrid Genetic Algorithm and Monte Carlo simulation approach to predict hourly energy consumption and generation by a cluster of Net Zero Energy Buildings," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 626-637.
    15. Yuan, Jihui & Huang, Pei & Chai, Jiale, 2022. "Development of a calibrated typical meteorological year weather file in system design of zero-energy building for performance improvements," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    16. Ohlsson, K.E. Anders & Nair, Gireesh & Olofsson, Thomas, 2022. "Uncertainty in model prediction of energy savings in building retrofits: Case of thermal transmittance of windows," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    17. Li, Y. & Arulnathan, V. & Heidari, M.D. & Pelletier, N., 2022. "Design considerations for net zero energy buildings for intensive, confined poultry production: A review of current insights, knowledge gaps, and future directions," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    18. Lu, Yuehong & Zhang, Xiao-Ping & Huang, Zhijia & Lu, Jinli & Wang, Dong, 2019. "Impact of introducing penalty-cost on optimal design of renewable energy systems for net zero energy buildings," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C), pages 106-116.
    19. Guarino, Francesco & Cassarà, Pietro & Longo, Sonia & Cellura, Maurizio & Ferro, Erina, 2015. "Load match optimisation of a residential building case study: A cross-entropy based electricity storage sizing algorithm," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 380-391.
    20. Yoorae Noh & Shahryar Jafarinejad & Prashant Anand, 2024. "A Review on Harnessing Renewable Energy Synergies for Achieving Urban Net-Zero Energy Buildings: Technologies, Performance Evaluation, Policies, Challenges, and Future Direction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-22, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:13:p:3760-:d:580442. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.