Zero Energy Buildings

Energy use by buildings would be reduced by a Factor 10 or more below that of conventional buildings. The purpose of factor 10 is a long-term

Wind energy is, “a renewable resource and has no fuel cost”, which helps the wind energy industry rise to prominence (American). With the low prices of wind energy, it is becoming an affordable form of electricity, although it still isn’t a main component in regards to energy production. Hydropower is the United States, “largest source of renewable electricity”; the most common type is conventional, which is typically associated with dams (Valley). Although hydropower is the most prominent green energy source in the United States, it doesn’t take away from the outrageous prices that go along with having this type of energy. Solar energy is the last main source of green energy. There isn’t as much research regarding this industry, because it isn’t as developed as the others. However, millions of dollars have been granted to try and better its development (Howell). Green buildings are structures that, “aim to reduce the negative impacts on the environment through using less natural resources to build and operate” (Dwaikat). These eco-boosting buildings incorporate each of the common types of green energy, however in some cases, they “don’t perform as predicted” (Dwaikat). In a case study over green buildings, it was found that they, “used around 160% more energy than expected”, which became a trend for the majority of the buildings (Dwaikat).

Renewable energy sources, like hydroelectric, solar, and wind, have proven to be hugely ineffective because they do not generate large enough quantities of electricity (Canadian Nuclear Association, 2013). For instance, a total land area of 40 times the size of Metropolitan Toronto would be needed to generate enough power for the city of Toronto using wind energy (Canadian Nuclear Association, 2013). Moreover, renewable energy sources heavily depend on the weather when generating power. For example, hydroelectric generators require rainfall to flood damns and create flowing water, wind turbines require powerful winds to turn the blades, and solar panels require clear skies and ample amounts of sunshine to produce electricity (Solar Schools, n.d.). Thus, renewable energy sources become unpredictable and inconsistent without these weather conditions.

Fernandez and since the electricity bill has gone up, he recalled the documentary he saw in the past that said, use non-renewable energy sources to ‘get off the grid’. How can the non-renewable energy used to ‘get off the grid’? Using renewable energy will definitely cost lesser than using non- renewable energy. However, since, the renewable energy can be only produced using the equipment such as solar panels, wind turbines, etc., the people who use non-renewable energy has to bear the cost of their equipment or the government has to bear the cost of the community’s equipment. Other than that, there won’t be any type of cost related to the usage of non-renewable energy. However, setting up renewable energy sources around cities can be a bit expensive, since the government has build renewable power station brand newly. However, that cost would be covered eventually by gaining profits from using renewable energy.

Green buildings could become one of the main factors to preserve our rapidly decaying environment. There is no easy way to define a green building, but a green building is essentially a structure that amplifies the positives and mitigates the negatives throughout the entire life cycle of the building (Kriss, 2014). There are many definitions for a green building, but all of them include the planning, designing, constructing, and operating of the building while taking into huge considerations of the energy use, water use, indoor air environment, materials used and the effect it has on the site the green building is being built on. The first green buildings dates back to as far as the 1970’s, when solar panels went from experiments to reality. Green buildings were not as popular as they are today due to their extremely high pricing. With technology rapidly growing, solar panels are becoming cheaper and cheaper, making the transition to creating green buildings more affordable. This is the primary reason for the increased growth of green buildings today. A modern company that is paving the way to the growth of green buildings named LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, focuses primarily on new and effective ideas for environmentally friendly buildings projects. With more than 60,000 commercial projects worldwide and 1.7 million square feet being certified every day, LEED is one of the leading groups for promoting green buildings. LEED has popularized the entire

Given that cost is an important consideration in construction, this thesis aims to identify energy-efficient code-compliant solutions for cold climates from a cost efficiency point of view.

Hybrid solar panels by Naked Energy where both photovoltaic and thermal energy outputs are combined. The benefit is reduced installation time and cost while maximizing the usable installation area . This would also include replacing the whole heating and water system. To ensure planning permission is approved the solar panels should not be easily visible from the street.

Data related to energy efficiency, utilities and construction is really difficult to obtain for a building, as many multifamily owners and operators never benchmark the energy performance of their building. This critical shortage of information about building energy performance has prevented property markets from valuing energy efficiency and severely undermined both public and private efforts to increase the energy efficiency of multifamily housing. This has really affected the development of energy efficient and green policies in multi family building. Green building is about improving our design and construction practices so that the multifamily homes we build today will last longer, cost less to operate, and won’t harm the health of workers and residents. It is also about protecting natural resources and improving the built environment so that ecosystems, people, enterprises and communities can thrive and prosper.

Concern about the environment and preservation of natural resource had become a heated debate among citizens, designers, and politics. United States alone uses a significant among of world’s energy and produces a great amount of greenhouse gas. According to U.S. Department of Energy’s EIA for 2007, commercial and residential buildings consume about 40 percent of the energy usage in the United States. Building constructions plays an important role in sustainable development and environmental preservation because building life cycle starts with

Take a large city for example. Running a city on renewable energy would be problematic, especially during peak operating hours like mornings and at nights after work. Power would not always be reliable because obviously it is not always windy or sunny and grid wide power outages would make a lot of unhappy people. What would hospitals, police stations, or other services that need to be open 24 hours a day do with such blackouts? If these blackouts occur just a few times, imagine the chaos that would ensue (Lowe, 18). People get angry when the power or internet is not working right for a few minutes. Imagine the problems that would ensue from blackouts that occur daily when people are making dinner or getting ready

A journal written by, C.Theodore Koebel, Andrew P. McCoy, Andrew R. Sanderford, Christopher T. Franck, Matthew J. Keefe; entitled “Energy and Buildings,” Stated; “In 2013 the residential and commercial sectors accounted for 40% of total U.S. energy consumption, with residential alone accounting for 22%. Based on the most recent

For example, when a building uses an unreliable water system, it drains and wastes the water from lakes, rivers, and other water bodies. Buildings are responsible for not just a large percentage of the world’s water use, but a large percentage of wasted water as well. It is estimated that buildings use 13.6% of all potable water, which is around 15 trillion gallons of water per year. Buildings also use 41% of the world’s energy. The two other highest energy consumers do not even come close to that amount! A building’s heating and cooling system, lighting system and outlet use all contribute to determining how much energy is used.

Steinberger, Valerie Dupont, Timothy J. Foxton, (2016), Energy and Buildings, Leeds, pg98-108, Date accessed (08/10/17).

With the emergence of climate change as a worldwide concern in the past several decades, scientists and engineers have worked assiduously to develop better and cleaner ways to produce energy. Renewable energy systems have experienced unimaginable advancements in recent years to make them more efficient, but utilities still struggle with the storage of this energy for practical use. Different types of renewable energy are currently stored in multiple ways, which contributes to discrepancies among the comparative efficiencies of various sources of energy in different areas and situations. This paper will discuss how several major renewable systems store energy, and what combination of circumstances makes each of them respectively advantageous.

Some architectures are designed to consume resources more efficiently aiming not to exceed the availability for satisfying future generation needs and continuing a balanced ecosystem. It seems that renewable energy is being used in some architectures in order to achieve the low consumption of resource. This is one attempt for human to try to make the buildings sustainable and ecofriendly, because it is can be noticed that the buildings may consume materials, energy and functioning the buildings needs to use energy as well(Cordero, 1992). It has been found that buildings did have an impact on the environment such as generating greenhouse gas emission(Cordero, 1992). Thus, in order to reduce the