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The Feasibility Study of Net Zero Energy Building for Future Energy
Development

Chapter · March 2020

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-13-9528-4_46

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Environmental Engineering

Zhaojun Wang
Yingxin Zhu
Fang Wang
Peng Wang
Chao Shen
Jing Liu Editors

Proceedings of the
11th International
Symposium on Heating,
Ventilation and Air
Conditioning (ISHVAC
2019)
Volume III: Buildings and Energy
Environmental Science and Engineering

Environmental Engineering

Series Editors
Ulrich Förstner, Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, Hamburg, Germany
Wim H. Rulkens, Department of Environmental Technology,
Wageningen, The Netherlands
Wim Salomons, Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Amsterdam,
Haren, The Netherlands
The Feasibility Study of Net Zero Energy
Building for Future Energy Development

Yutong Li, Bin Hao and Qing Ye

Abstract The concept of net zero energy building has attracted many attentions and
controversies since it was put forward. Many scholars have analyzed its configuration,
technology, modeling approach and feasibility of application. However, there are still
few studies focus on the application of net zero buildings considering future energy
development. Based on the current energy situation and the development trend of
energy technology, this paper analyzed the technical feasibility of net zero energy
building in the hot summer and warm winter climate zone in China through case
studies of two demo projects. Simulation and real-site measurement are used to
obtain energy consumption data of the case buildings. The results show that the
realization of net zero energy building should not only depend on the traditional
energy-saving technologies, but should also depend on the transformation of the
energy system and the combination of information technologies. The achievement
of net zero energy building should not be conducted in an individual building, but
should be conducted in scale of a whole urban energy system. In summary, net zero
energy buildings are one of opportunities for the construction industry to undertake
country-wide energy revolution and further integration with information technology.

Keywords Net zero energy building · High-density and high-volume building ·

Renewable energy · Urban energy system · Technical routes

1 The Definition of Net Zero Energy Building

The concept of “net zero energy building (NZEB)” was first put forward at the
twenty-first United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in the context of
global response to climate change and sustainable development. The background of
the net zero energy building is essentially different from that of the “energy-saving
building” which was brought up during the oil crisis in the 1970s. Changing from the

Y. Li (B) · B. Hao · Q. Ye
Shenzhen Institute of Building Research Co., Ltd, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
e-mail: Liyutong@ibrcn.com

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 453

Z. Wang et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Heating,
Ventilation and Air Conditioning (ISHVAC 2019), Environmental Science
and Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9528-4_46
454 Y. Li et al.

perspective of increasing energy consumption to climate change, the driving force

of the net zero energy building is more urgent and broader [1–3].
Ever since then, relevant concepts, including passive buildings, low-energy build-
ings, ultra-low-energy buildings, nearly zero energy buildings and so on, have been
put forward. For further development, initiatives with ambitious goals have been
made worldwide. The Energy Independence and Safety Act of 2007 in the USA
authorized the “Net Zero Energy Commercial Building Initiative” to set the goal of
achieving NZEB for all new commercial buildings in 2030, for 50% of commercial
buildings in 2040, and for all commercial buildings in 2050. The European Building
Energy Performance Directive (EPBD) regards NZEB as the energy consumption
target for all public and government buildings from 2018 and for all new buildings
from 2020 [4, 5]. The NZEB is no longer regarded as a concept of the future, but as
an important practical measure to mitigate CO2 emissions.
Although the concept of NZEB has been put forward in many countries and some
countries have formulated development plans and goals of NZEB, there is still no
complete consensus on the definition of this kind of sustainable buildings. In 2015, the
U.S. Department of Energy issued its official definition of NZEB: In terms of primary
energy, its annual energy consumption is less than or equal to the generated energy of
the individual building and nearby renewable resources. In the relevant EU standards,
the NZEB is able to produce energy, and the production is equal to or greater than
the energy consumption. It emphasizes that fossil energy consumption of building
is less than or equal to renewable energy production through applications of active,
passive design, efficient energy systems and renewable energy systems. China also
presents the definition of the NZEB in the editing technical standard currently: “the
building can adapt to local climate characteristics and natural conditions actively, and
can reduce building heating and cooling demand to the greatest extent so as to make
the building energy consumption less than the renewable energy supply.” From the
above definitions, it can be seen that different countries have different understandings
of NZEB. Some definitions emphasize the decrease of primary energy consumption
(especially fossil energy consumption) to address the CO2 emission reduction. Some
definitions focus on the building energy production or the building energy demand
which is more practical for implementation purpose.

2 Technical Routes of NZEB

The controversy of defining NZEB is also the distinctions of exploring the tech-
nical routes of NZEB depending on countries’ own climate characteristics, energy
situations and economic conditions. In general, the technical routes can be summa-
rized into three categories. The first one of the technical routes is represented by
the European Union and South Korea. It focuses on the reducing winter heating
demand and emphasizing the improvement of the thermal insulation performance
and air tightness of building envelope, and the application of renewable energy. The
second one is represented by the USA. It emphasizes the balance between energy
The Feasibility Study of Net Zero Energy Building for Future … 455

input and output. It does not purposefully pursue the high-performance insulation
and air tightness of the envelope, but emphasizes the application of renewable energy.
The third category of NZEB technical route, represented by Japan, emphasizes the
using of natural resources (e.g., natural light, natural ventilation), high-performance
equipment and renewable energy under the premise of guaranteeing the indoor and
outdoor environment quality and achieving the balance between energy supply and
energy demand of buildings. It can be seen that European countries pay more atten-
tion to the improvement of building envelop insulation due to the abundant heating
demand in winter. As to the countries with highly verity energy consumption like
the USA, the development of renewable energy application is more emphasized as
measures.
Besides the climate conditions, the primary energy structure and urban morphol-
ogy also affect the selection of technical route. For example, natural gas consumption
of European countries highly depends on the importation, only 25% of that is self-
generated. This can partly explain that why they give priority to reducing the heating
demand. Even the USA has sufficient energy supply, and it is suffering from high
cost of energy transmission due to the sparse urban morphology. Renewable energy
resources and distributed energy supply seem to be a reasonable solution in this
country [6–8].
As China, which mainly depends on the fossil energy and has high-density and
high-volume urban mode, can we achieve the goal of “net” zero energy consumption
under the existing economic and technology conditions? Or to what extent can we
achieve “nearly” zero energy buildings?

3 Feasibility of the Net Zero Energy Commercial Building

In fact, a general consensus is that NZEB is and only is viable for low-density and
low-floor residential buildings. Although building’s energy demand can be reduced
through comprehensive passive and active technologies, it is still difficult to balance
the energy consumption and the onsite renewable energy production for middle
and high-rise commercial buildings. This paper attempts to explore the technical
feasibility of net zero energy commercial buildings through demonstration projects
developed in hot summer and warm winter climate zone. The technical routes of
NZEB for high-density and high-volume buildings in China are discussed based on
the results of case studies.
The demonstration project, which has 60,000 square meters floor area, adopts
modular design in Shenzhen, a typical city in hot summer and warm winter climate
zone in China. This project consists of seven modules, and each of which is about
5000 square meters. The functions of the buildings are mainly offices, laboratories
and apartments. The main functional zones and the corresponding numbers of this
demonstration project are shown in Fig. 1.
Considering the climate characteristics of the hot summer and warm winter zone
and the occupancies living habits of southern China, natural ventilation is one of the
456 Y. Li et al.

Fig. 1 Main functional areas of demonstration building

most effective passive energy-saving measures to reduce the HVAC energy demand.
The demo project firstly emphasizes climate adaptability design to create the feasi-
bility of natural ventilation through the building layout, orientation and shape coef-
ficient. Secondly, the mechanical ventilation system is designed to achieve the fresh
air operation mode in transitional seasons. According to the meteorological condi-
tions in Shenzhen, natural ventilation or natural ventilation with partial mechanical
ventilation can achieve indoor comfort without relying on air-conditioning systems
between January and May as well as October and December. With proper natural
ventilation design, the operating time of air-conditioning can be reduced by two
months throughout the year to meet the comfort requirement, which accounts for
53% of the whole air-conditioning time as shown in Fig. 2.
Besides natural ventilation, solar shading is another essential measure to reduce
the building cooling demand in hot summer and warm winter zones. The demo project
adopts double curtain wall structure and a variety of movable external sunshade
forms on the facade to achieve the shading effect by responding to indoor lighting
and ventilation needs flexibly (Fig. 3).

Fig. 2 Assessment of the natural ventilation potential

The Feasibility Study of Net Zero Energy Building for Future … 457

Fig. 3 Building double facade and flexible external shading

This demo project adopts active technologies to improve the flexibility of the
system rather than the efficiency of individual equipment. The optimal operation
efficiency is achieved by matching energy supply and uncertain energy demand
patterns in the building operation time. For example, this project adopts flexible
multivariable air-conditioning units in HVAC systems. The design purpose of the
HVAC system is not pursuing the highest efficiency of the air conditioner under
the rated conditions, but enables the system to have the maximum flexibility and
efficiency to accommodate the uncertainty of partial load conditions and to match
natural ventilation operation mode. In the lighting system, instead of using efficient
LED lighting, the lighting control system is also designed to match the daylighting
design. Constant illumination control mode is adopted to reduce lighting energy
consumption as much as possible under the premise of satisfying lighting quality.
Regarding renewable energy, the system reduces the primary energy consump-
tion of buildings by using photovoltaic, which is located on the building roof, and
energy storage cells. In Fig. 4, it can be seen that the utilization ratio of total photo-
voltaic power generation reaches 96%. In this project, the buildings can absorb the
photovoltaic power generation as much as possible.
Through the above technical route of using natural light, natural ventilation and
shading properly, adopting high-efficiency energy equipment and integration of
renewable energy as well as energy storage, energy consumption of buildings is

Fig. 4 Building PV installation and annual energy production

458 Y. Li et al.

Fig. 5 Building energy consumption and energy-saving percentage of technologies

reduced in great extent. Results indicate that the project has achieved an energy
consumption level of 49.01 kWh/(m2 a), which is 47% lower than the reference
building energy consumption of GB50189-2015 in the Standard for Energy Conser-
vation Design of Public Buildings, 51% lower than the restriction of the Standard
for Energy Consumption of Civil Buildings GB/T51161-2016 and 40% lower com-
pared with the guided value. After deducting the photovoltaic power generation, the
annual energy consumption level of this project drops to 29 kWh/(m2 a). However,
the project still fails to achieve the goal of “net zero energy consumption.” Buildings
still need to import electricity from the power grid to meet energy demand (Fig. 5).
The monitoring data of another NZEB demonstration project in the same climate
zone also shows the same results. It is also a high-rise office building with floor
area up to 23,546 m2 . The building adopts energy-saving measures such as high-
performance envelope (e.g., wall and roof insulation, natural lighting and ventilation),
high-efficiency HVAC equipment, LED intelligent lighting, solar BIPV generation
and so on. The total electricity consumption of the project in 2017 was measured
to be 738,000 kWh, and the 228 kWp photovoltaic system generated 150,000 kWh
electricity, which account for 16% of the total electricity consumption in the whole
year. After deducting photovoltaic power generation, the annual energy consumption
level was only 33.4 kWh/(m2 a).
Evaluating from the “net” or “nearly” zero perspective, results show that both of
the two demo projects fail to reduce the building energy consumption to the energy
generation. Even the building envelope is covered with photovoltaic panels, and the
energy demand is greatly dropped.

4 Discussion on the Technical Feasibility of NZEB

Facing the above problems, we have to rethink the role of individual building in
the whole urban energy system and explore the technical feasibility of NZEB in a
broader scale. Statistical results show that the proportion of air-conditioning power
demand in summer peak period in China reached to 30–40%, and it is still rising. The
fluctuation of building power demand will have a significant impact on the power
supply capacity, security, transmission and distribution efficiency of the power grid.
The Feasibility Study of Net Zero Energy Building for Future … 459

Traditionally, the building is a passive power consumer, and there is no excessive

interaction between building and power grid. To solve the problems that may be
arisen by the fluctuation of air-conditioning demand in buildings, the supply side
of power grid should be developed to be mainly passive response. Those response
approaches include air-conditioning demand forecasting based on historical data and
meteorological forecast, increasing the reserve capacity of power grid during the peak
load period in summer and cutting out the industrial load to ensure residential power
supply [9, 10].
In fact, building energy demand is highly adjustable. Even no energy storage
is equipped; the thermal inertia of the building itself and the tolerance of people
to temperature changes are the potentials to respond to the active power grid peak
shaving. Virtual energy storage (VES), which was put forward by some researchers,
is adopted to quantify the ability of building to actively regulate or shift the power
demand for a certain period of time.
Although the influence and contribution of an individual building to power grid
is very limited, significant environmental benefits can be expected under the “high-
density and high-volume ratio” urban form by actively adjusting the building’s power
demand for building clusters. According to the research on the demand response
mechanism of the power grid, the standard coal consumption per unit power gener-
ation at the supply side can be effectively reduced by 10–15% by adopting demand
response with 10% peak shaving. It will create both impressive environmental ben-
efits and considerable economic benefits for electricity market [11–13].
Meanwhile, the primary energy, which is consumed in both the energy production
and transmission process, should be used to calculate the energy balance of the
NZEB. In terms of technologies, flexible access to distributed/renewable energy
sources, improvement of building “flexible” energy storage technology and microgrid
technology is the important directions for the development of NZEB technology.

5 Conclusions

Starting from the definition of NZEB, this paper analyzes the technical feasibility
of the commercial net zero energy building in the hot summer and warm winter
climate zone. Through the analysis of energy data of two demo projects, it can be
seen that NZEB cannot be achieved in an individual commercial building in this
region. Considering the relationship between buildings and urban energy system, it
is a good option to achieve the NZEB in the scale of building clusters instead of a
single building. This will make the NZEB feasible and meaningful in the urban area
which has high-density and high-volume ratio, and this will also be an opportunity for
the construction industry to further employ information technologies in the future.

Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge the support from the National Key R&D Program
of China, Research and Development of Urban Energy Saving and Low Carbon Solution Tools
(Project Number: 2017YFE0105600).
 460 Y. Li et al.

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