Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

The conception of net zero energy buildings (NZEB) has been introduced to limit energy consumption, global warming potentials, and pollution emissions in buildings. In general, it is traditionally agreed that there are three main steps to reach the NZEB performance, starting through the use of passive strategies, energy efficient technologies, and then renewable energy (RE) generation systems. Building optimization approaches are promising techniques to evaluate NZEB design choices. The challenge in NZEB design is to find the best combination of design strategies that will enhance the energy performance of a particular building. The aim of this thesis is to develop an understanding of NZEBs design concepts. Besides, it aims to assist NZEB designers to select the suitable design options of passive and RE systems based on a systemic evaluation in different climates. This thesis presents a methodology for the simulation-based multi-criteria optimization of NZEBs. Its main features include four steps : building energy simulation, optimization process, multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) and testing solution’s robustness. The methodology is applied to investigate the cost-effectiveness potential for optimizing the design of NZEBs in different case studies taken as diverse climatic zones. The proposed methodology is a useful tool to enhance NZEBs design and to facilitate decision making in early phases of building design. The high potential of buildings towards energy efficiency has drawn special attention to the passive design parameters. A comprehensive study on optimal passive design for residential buildings is presented. Twenty five different climates are simulated with the aim to suggest best practices to reduce building energy demands (for cooling and heating) in addition to the life cycle cost (LCC). The occupants’ adaptive thermal comfort is also improved by implementing the appropriate passive cooling strategies such as blinds and natural ventilation. The integrated optimal passive measures have demonstrated its competency since it leads to a significant energy demand, LCC, and overheating-period decrease. The configurations and capacities of the implemented RE systems in NZEBs must be appropriately selected to ensure the intended performance objective. In the thesis, investigation, optimization and comparison of six RE solution sets for designing NZEBs is carried out in three typical climates : Indore (cooling dominant), Tromso (heating dominant) and Beijing (mixed climate). The performance of NZEB is evaluated in terms of a combined performance comprised of building energy consumption, LCC, payback period, levelized cost of energy, CO2eq emissions, load matching index, and grid interaction index. Recommendations for each region are provided.