In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store, reflect, and distribute solar energy, in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer. This is called passive solar design because, unlike active solar heating systems, it does not involve the use of mechanical and electrical devices.
Carbon neutrality is a state of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. This can be achieved by balancing emissions of carbon dioxide with its removal or by eliminating emissions from society. The term is used in the context of carbon dioxide-releasing processes associated with transportation, energy production, agriculture, and industry.
Green building refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from planning to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition. This requires close cooperation of the contractor, the architects, the engineers, and the client at all project stages. The Green Building practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort. In doing so, the three dimensions of sustainability, i.e., planet, people and profit across the entire supply chain need to be considered.
A low-energy house is characterized by an energy-efficient design and technical features which enable it to provide high living standards and comfort with low energy consumption and carbon emissions. Traditional heating and active cooling systems are absent, or their use is secondary. Low-energy buildings may be viewed as examples of sustainable architecture. Low-energy houses often have active and passive solar building design and components, which reduce the house's energy consumption and minimally impact the resident's lifestyle. Throughout the world, companies and non-profit organizations provide guidelines and issue certifications to guarantee the energy performance of buildings and their processes and materials. Certifications include passive house, BBC - Bâtiment Basse Consommation - Effinergie (France), zero-carbon house (UK), and Minergie (Switzerland).
Passive house is a voluntary standard for energy efficiency in a building, which reduces the building's ecological footprint. It results in ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or cooling. A similar standard, MINERGIE-P, is used in Switzerland. The standard is not confined to residential properties; several office buildings, schools, kindergartens and a supermarket have also been constructed to the standard. Passive design is not an attachment or supplement to architectural design, but a design process that integrates with architectural design. Although it is principally applied to new buildings, it has also been used for refurbishments.
A Zero Energy Building (ZEB), also known as a Net Zero Energy (NZE) building, or a Zero Net Energy (ZNE) building, is a building with net zero energy consumption, meaning the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis is equal to the amount of renewable energy created on the site or in other definitions by renewable energy sources offsite, using technology such as heat pumps, high efficiency windows and insulation, and solar panels. The goal is that these buildings contribute less overall greenhouse gas to the atmosphere during operations than similar non-ZNE buildings. They do at times consume non-renewable energy and produce greenhouse gases, but at other times reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas production elsewhere by the same amount. Zero-energy buildings are not only driven by a want to have less of an impact on the environment, but they are also driven by money. Tax breaks as well as savings on energy costs make Zero-energy buildings financially viable. A similar concept approved and implemented by the European Union and other agreeing countries is nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB), with the goal of having all new buildings in the region under nZEB standards by 2020.
Domestic housing in the United Kingdom presents a possible opportunity for achieving the 20% overall cut in UK carbon dioxide emissions targeted by the Government for 2010. However, the process of achieving that drop is proving problematic given the very wide range of age and condition of the UK housing stock.
The sustainable city, eco-city, or green city is a city designed with consideration for social, economic, environmental impact, and resilient habitat for existing populations, without compromising the ability of future generations to experience the same. The UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 defines sustainable cities as those that are dedicated to achieving green sustainability, social sustainability and economic sustainability. They are committed to doing so by enabling opportunities for all through a design focused on inclusivity as well as maintaining a sustainable economic growth. The focus also includes minimizing required inputs of energy, water, and food, and drastically reducing waste, output of heat, air pollution – CO2, methane, and water pollution. Richard Register first coined the term ecocity in his 1987 book Ecocity Berkeley: Building Cities for a Healthy Future, where he offers innovative city planning solutions that would work anywhere. Other leading figures who envisioned sustainable cities are architect Paul F Downton, who later founded the company Ecopolis Pty Ltd, as well as authors Timothy Beatley and Steffen Lehmann, who have written extensively on the subject. The field of industrial ecology is sometimes used in planning these cities.
Building insulation is any object in a building used as insulation for thermal management. While the majority of insulation in buildings is for thermal purposes, the term also applies to acoustic insulation, fire insulation, and impact insulation. Often an insulation material will be chosen for its ability to perform several of these functions at once.
Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the process of reducing the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a building allows it to use less heating and cooling energy to achieve and maintain a thermal comfort. Installing light-emitting diode bulbs, fluorescent lighting, or natural skylight windows reduces the amount of energy required to attain the same level of illumination compared to using traditional incandescent light bulbs. Improvements in energy efficiency are generally achieved by adopting a more efficient technology or production process or by application of commonly accepted methods to reduce energy losses.
The National Energy Foundation (NEF) is an independent British charity, established to improve the use of energy in buildings.
VELUX is a manufacturing company that specialises in roof windows, skylights, suntunnels and related accessories. The company is headquartered in Hørsholm, Denmark and is a part of VKR Holding A/S.
VELUX Group is a founding partner of the global Active House Alliance.
A zero-carbon city is a goal of city planners that describes a city that runs entirely on renewable energy; has no carbon footprint; and will in this respect not cause harm to the planet. Most cities throughout the world produce energy by burning coal, oil and gas, unintentionally emitting carbon and the development of cities is intimately linked to the causes and impacts of climate change.To become a zero-carbon city, an established modern city must collectively reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to zero and all practices that emit greenhouse gases must cease. Also, renewable energy must supersede other non-renewable energy sources and become the sole source of energy, so a zero-carbon city is a renewable-energy-economy city.
High-performance buildings are those which deliver a relatively higher level of energy-efficiency performance or greenhouse-gas reduction than what is required by building codes or other regulations. Architects, designers, and builders typically design and build high-performance buildings using a range of established strategies, techniques, tools, and materials to ensure that, upon completion, the building will consume a minimal amount of energy for heating, cooling, illumination, and ventilation during operation.
A green retrofit is any refurbishment of an existing building that aims to reduce the carbon emissions and environmental impact of the building. This includes, but is not limited to, improving the energy efficiency of the heating, air conditioning, ventilation, and other mechanical systems, increasing the quality of insulation in the building envelope, implementing sustainable energy generation, and aiming to improve occupant comfort and health.
A Deep energy retrofit can be broadly categorized as an energy conservation measure in an existing building also leading to an overall improvement in the building performance. While there is no exact definition for a deep energy retrofit, it can be defined as a whole-building analysis and construction process that aims at achieving on-site energy use minimization in a building by 50% or more compared to the baseline energy use making use of existing technologies, materials and construction practices. Such a retrofit reaps multifold benefits beyond energy cost savings, unlike conventional energy retrofit. It may also involve remodeling the building to achieve a harmony in energy, indoor air quality, durability, and thermal comfort. An integrated project delivery method is recommended for a deep energy retrofit project. An over-time approach in a deep energy retrofitting project provides a solution to the large upfront costs problem in all-at-once execution of the project.
DERs are projects that create new, valuable assets from existing residences, by bringing homes into alignment with the expectations of the 21st century
The Power Tower is the first high-rise office tower to attempt to meet the strict Passive House energy efficiency building standard. It was built to house the corporate headquarters of the Austrian utility company Energie AG in Linz, Austria.
The Creative Energy Homes (CEH) project is a showcase of energy-efficient homes of the future. Seven homes constructed on the University Park Campus of the University of Nottingham are being designed and constructed to various degrees of innovation and flexibility to allow the testing of different aspects of modern methods of construction including layout and form, cladding materials, roof structures, foundations, glazing materials, thermal performance, building services systems, sustainable/renewable energy technologies, lighting systems, acoustics and water supply. The project aims to stimulate sustainable design ideas and promote new ways of providing affordable, environmentally sustainable housing that are innovative in their design. The homes are fully instrumented and occupied in order to provide comprehensive post occupancy evaluation data.
Zero-carbon housing and zero-energy housing are terms used interchangeably to define single family dwellings with a very high energy efficiency rating. Zero-energy housing requires a very low amount of energy to conduct the daily activities performed by the occupying family.
IDA IndoorClimate andEnergy is a Building performance simulation (BPS) software. IDA ICE is a simulation application for the multi-zonal and dynamic study of indoor climate phenomena as well as energy use. The implemented models are state of the art, many studies show that simulation results and measured data compare well.
