Energy xxx (2013) 1e10

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Review

Zero energy buildings and sustainable development implications e A review

Danny H.W. Li a, Liu Yang b, Joseph C. Lam a, *
a
Building Energy Research Group, Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong Special Administrative
Region
b
School of Architecture, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Shaanxi 710055, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Buildings account for a significant proportion of the total energy and carbon emissions worldwide, and
Received 28 August 2012 play an important role in formulating sustainable development strategies. There is a growing interest in
Received in revised form ZEBs (zero energy buildings) in recent years. Several countries have adopted or considering establishing
28 January 2013
ZEBs as their future building energy targets to help alleviate the problems concerning the depletion of
Accepted 29 January 2013
Available online xxx
energy resources and the deterioration of the environment. Broadly speaking, ZEBs involve two design
strategies e minimizing the need for energy use in buildings (especially for heating and cooling) through
EEMs (energy-efficient measures) and adopting RETs (renewable energy and other technologies) to meet
Keywords:
Zero energy buildings
the remaining energy needs. This paper reviews the works related to these two strategies. EEMs include
Energy-efficient measures building envelopes, internal conditions, and building services systems; RETs cover photovoltaic/building-
Renewable energy technologies integrated photovoltaic, wind turbines, solar thermal (solar water heaters), heat pumps, and district
Sustainable development heating and cooling. Issues pertaining to sustainable development implications and further research
work required are also highlighted. These include life-cycle cost and environmental impacts, climate
change and social policy issues.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
It is generally believed that our climate is changing, and there is
a growing concern about the increase in energy use and its adverse
effects on the environment. Consider the two largest energy-
consuming countries e China and the United States e for instance.
In China, during 1978e2010 total primary energy consumption
increased markedly from 0.57 to 3.25 billion tonnes of oil equiva-
lent (an average annual increase of 5.6%); and in 2009, China
overtook the United States to become the largest energy consumer
[1e5]. Although carbon emissions per capita in China are low, its
total energy-related carbon emissions reached 6.1 Giga tonnes (Gt)
overtaking the US (5.7 Gt) in 2007, and have been projected to reach
over 10 Gt in 2050 [6,7]. When the life-cycle energy use and
emissions footprint are considered, buildings account for a signif-
icant proportion of the energy-related emissions. In addition to the
energy used for operation, buildings embody the energy used in the
mining, processing, manufacturing and transporting of the building
materials, and the energy consumed in the construction and
decommissioning of the buildings. This embodied energy, together
with the energy used during the life span of a building constitutes
the life-cycle energy and emissions footprint. It has been estimated
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ852 3442 7606; fax: þ852 3442 0427.
E-mail address: bcexem@cityu.edu.hk (J.C. Lam).
that buildings worldwide account for about one-third of the global
greenhouse gas emissions [8,9]. In arguing the importance of sus-
tainability in climate change and energy policy, Clift [10] suggested
that the greatest scope for demand reduction lay in improving the
building stock.
There have been growing interests in net zero energy buildings
in recent years. Since the 1970s, the net energy concept has been
applied in many different fields, from the fossil fuel [11] and nuclear
power to renewable energy [12]. Net energy analysis is a technique
used to compare the amount of energy delivered to society by a
technology to the total energy required to produce (i.e. find, extract,
etc.) it in a useful form. In the building sector, net energy is often
referred to a balance between the energy consumption in a building
and the energy produced by its renewable energy systems. The
terms ‘ZEBs (zero energy buildings)’ and ‘NZEBs (net zero energy
buildings)’ have both been adopted by different researchers.
Detailed definitions and descriptions can be found by Marszal et al.
[13] and Sartori et al. [14]. Briefly, NZEBs can be used to refer to
buildings that are connected to the energy infrastructure. In NZEBs,
there is a balance between energy taken from and supplied to the
energy (usually electricity) grid over a period of time, nominally a
year. ZEBs is more general and may include autonomous buildings.
We use the term ZEBs in this review. Several countries have
adopted or considering establishing ZEBs as their future building
energy targets such as the Building Technology Program of the US

0360-5442/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.01.070

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Department of Energy and the EU Directive on Energy Performance
of Buildings [14e16]. There have also been a number of case studies
worldwide demonstrating the potential of ZEBs to help alleviate the
depletion of energy resources and the deterioration of our envi-
ronment [17,19e23]. A summary of some recent studies is shown in
Table 1. In general, ZEBs involve two design strategies e (i) mini-
mizing the need for energy use in buildings (especially for heating
and cooling) through more energy-efficient measures, and (ii)
adopting renewable energy and other technologies to meet the
minimal energy needs. This paper presents a review of the ZEBs
works and discusses the implications for sustainable development.
To give a more comprehensive view and a better understanding of
the underlying issues and salient points, studies though not specific
to ZEBs but directly related to the two design strategies and
conducive to the development of ZEBs will also be considered. The
aim was to present an overview rather than a detailed analysis of
individual technologies/systems. Our approach was to briefly
describe/discuss the key issues and salient points related to indi-
vidual systems/techniques and quote the relevant references, so
that readers could refer to the work cited for more detailed infor-
mation/analysis. It is envisaged that this review would be of in-
terest to both energy researchers and policy makers.
2. Energy-efficient measures in the built environment
In most ZEBs, energy-efficient measures are necessary because,
more often than not, on-site energy generation options are limited
(e.g. adequate space for solar systems as in high-rise building
development [20]). Many developed and developing countries
have their own building energy standards and design guidelines
specifically developed to suit, among other things, the local cli-
mates as well as the prevailing architectural designs and con-
struction practices (e.g. the EPBD (Energy Performance of
Buildings Directive) which requires all new buildings to be “nearly
zero energy buildings by the end of 2020 in EU countries [15,16],
the ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-
Conditioning Engineers) Standard in the US [24] and the Design
Standard for Energy Efficiency of Public Buildings in China [25]).
As a starting point, architects and engineers tend to develop
energy-efficient measures in their buildings and building services
designs so as to meet (sometimes exceeding) the requirements
stipulated in local building energy standards. Broadly speaking,
energy-efficient measures that have significant influence on en-
ergy consumption in buildings can be grouped into three cate-
gories (these measures can also be applied to existing buildings
during minor/major retrofits) [26e28]:
 Building envelopes e thermal insulation, thermal mass, win-
dows/glazing (including daylighting) and reflective/green roofs.
 Internal conditions e indoor design conditions and internal
heat loads (due to electric lighting and equipment/appliances).
 Building services systems e HVAC (heating, ventilation and air
conditioning), electrical services (including lighting) and ver-
tical transportation (lifts and escalators).
Table 2 shows a summary of some recent studies of energy-
efficient buildings in Australia [29,30], China (including Hong
Kong) [27,31e35], United Arab Emirates [36], United States [37],
United Kingdom and continental Europe [38e42], and Burkino Faso
in Africa [43]. These studies involve one or more of the three major
categories outlined above. Detailed description of the individual
measures within each major category adopted in these studies can
be found in the corresponding cited References, and is therefore not
repeated here. Instead, the more salient points pertinent to the
three energy-efficient categories will be discussed.
2.1. Building envelopes
Different climates would have different requirements in the
building envelope designs to cater for the local prevailing climatic
conditions [44]. Various indices/criteria have been developed to
assess the thermal performance of building envelopes (e.g. the
OTTV (overall thermal transfer value) for subtropical climates
[45,46], the EETP (evaluation on energy and thermal performance)
in hot summer and cold winter zone [47], the ETTV (envelope
thermal transfer value) in the tropics [48] and the bioclimatic
approach using passive design strategies for different climate zones
[49]). The aim is to limit the amount of summer heat gain and
winter heat loss through the building envelope, so that the corre-
sponding heating and cooling requirements would not be exces-
sive. Key issues concerning the four energy-efficient measures of
the building envelope are elaborated as follows:
 Thermal insulation e three features to be highlighted. First,
insulation in general tends to be more effective (in terms of cost
and environmental benefits) in heating-dominated buildings
in colder climates. It is less effective in cooling-dominated
buildings with large internal heat loads in warmer climates.
Second, in theory more insulation means less conduction heat
gain/loss, and hence better energy efficiency. In practice, this is
not always the case. When a building envelope is over-
insulated, reduction in heat loss during cooling mode (espe-
cially in mid-season) tends to increase the cooling require-
ment, and could result in an overall increase in energy use for
space conditioning. The point beyond which further insulation
would be counter-productive is called “point of thermal
inflexion” [50,51]. Third, optimum insulation thickness can be
determined based on simple economic cost analysis [52,53],
the more complex life-cycle energy and CO2 emissions analysis
[54] and the cost-optimal levels of minimum energy perfor-
mance requirements for buildings and building elements [55].
Increasingly, people are interested in the environment-

Table 1
Summary of recent ZEBs case studies.

Region/country/city Reference Building Energy-efficient measures Renewable energy and other technologies
Cincinnati [17] Factory, office LEED EB Platinum Certified Building (Ref. [18]). PV, solar thermal, wind turbines, biomass stoves, GSHP.
Denmark [19] Residential Thermal insulation, low energy glazing. Three energy supply alternatives: (i) PV with
solar thermal and air/solar HP, (ii) PV with GSHP,
and (iii) PV with DH grid.
Hong Kong [20] Residential No specific energy-efficient measures. PV, BIPV, solar hot water, wind turbines.
Las Vegas [21] Residential Insulated slab, high R-value attic, PV tiles, solar water heater.
high performance windows,
high thermal mass walls,
water-cooled air conditioning.
Madrid and Shanghai [22] Residential Thermal mass, sun shading, evaporative cooling. Solar thermal hybrid HP, PV-powered reversible HP.
Serbia [23] Residential Thermal insulation. PV with water-to-water HP, GSHP

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Table 2
Summary of recent works on energy-efficient measures applied to buildings.

Country/city/climate Reference Building Energy-efficient measures/energy performance implications

Australia, 8 climate zones [29] Residential Thermal insulation, low-emissivity glass and double glazing, high energy efficiency appliances
(especially for cooling-dominated climates).
[30] Office Thermal insulation (less effective in cooling-dominated climates), lower WWR
(window-to-wall ratio), reflective glass, lower LLD (lighting load density,
particularly effective in cooling-dominated climates).
China, 5 major architectural [27,31,32] Office Thermal insulation (effective in severe cold and cold climates), double and triple glazing,
climate zones lower WWR, raise summer SST (set point temperature), lower LLD, improve chiller
COP (coefficient of performance).
Hong Kong SAR [33e35] Residential Thermal insulation, thermal mass, reflective coating windows, lower WWR, solar shading,
9e19% reduction in cooling load and 11e29% reduction in peaking cooling demand.
United Arab Emirates [36] Residential Thermal insulation, thermal mass, double glazing, lower WWR, daylighting, 28% reduction
United States, 8 climate zones [37] Non-residential Thermal insulation, low-emissivity windows, solar shading, daylighting in CO2 emissions.
(office, hotel,
school, etc.)
United Kingdom [38] Residential Thermal insulation, cavity wall, double glazing (best option because of highest saving in
heating energy demand and lowest induced increase in cooling load).
[39,40] Office Thermal insulation, low-emissivity glass, triple glazing, LED lighting, thermal mass with
high ventilation and solar shading help reduce summer overheating.
Berlin (cold), Barcelona [41] General, no specific Traditional air-cavity wall, plus-insulated (air-cavity with additional cork covering) wall,
(temperate), Palermo (warm) building type ventilated wall, good energy and environmental saving in extreme weather conditions in
Berlin and Palermo.
Switzerland [42] Office Solar shading, night ventilation, special design strategies to minimize summer overheating
and reduce the need for cooling energy use.
Burkina Faso (sub-Saharan Africa) [43] Office Solar shading, up to 40% reduction in cooling load.

effectiveness, not just cost-effectiveness of energy-efficient
measures. It is envisaged that life-cycle CO2 emissions anal-
ysis would be adopted more often by designers and researchers
worldwide.
 Thermal mass e since the early work by Givoni [56], design
techniques based on thermal mass have been adopted to
lower the indoor daytime temperature by a number of de-
signers and researchers. More recently, the merits of thermal
mass were systematically evaluated using sensitivity analysis
[57]. It is generally believed that thermal mass should be in-
tegrated with night-time ventilation (natural/mechanical) to
utilize the full energy-saving potential. Such design strategy
has proved to be effective in avoiding summer overheating
and reduce cooling requirements [39,58]. This could help
mitigate the impact of global warming on the indoor built
environment.
 Windows/glazing (including daylighting) e the general
approach is to lower the WWR (window-to-wall ratio) (i.e.
smaller window area), and use double/triple glazing systems
with low-emissivity glass and inert gas filled cavity to
minimize the amount of heat gain/loss [59]. Again, double/
triple glazing would not be very effective in cooling-
dominated buildings with large internal heat loads in
warmer climates, where single reflective glass is often used
to limit the amount of solar heat gain. Reduced window area
and reflective glass, however, are not conducive to good
daylighting designs. Both numerical and experimental (with
on-site measurements) works have indicated great energy-
saving potential of daylighting schemes especially in cooling-
dominated buildings due to the dual savings in electricity use
for artificial lighting and air conditioning (less heat dissipa-
tion from lighting installations) [60e62]. The key is to strike
a right balance between useful daylight and excessive solar
heat through the analysis of different combinations of the
daylight aperture (light transmittance  WWR) and the solar
aperture (shading coefficient  WWR) [63,64]. Different
design aspects in terms of the thermal, acoustic, visual and
solar performance of the window/glazing system should be
considered together during the initial, conceptual design
stage. Generalized energy rating systems have been devel-
oped for different glazing, buildings and climates. We believe
these rating systems are valuable design tools conducive to
more environment-friendly and sustainable building devel-
opment [65e68].
 Reflective/green roofs e heat gain through the roof of a low-
rise (particularly single-storey) building can account for a
significant proportion of the total building envelope cooling
load. Cool or reflective roofs reflect most of the incoming
solar heat and hence reduce the amount of conduction heat
gain. It has been demonstrated that reflective roofs could
result in substantial energy savings. For instance, Akbari et al.
[69] studied 11 prototypical buildings (i.e. residential, office,
store, school and health care) in 11 US metropolitan statis-
tical areas, and estimated that if all roofs were changed to
optimum reflectivity, the reduction in peak demand would
be equivalent to avoiding building more than 13 power
plants of 0.5 GW capacity. More recently, Boixo et al. [70]
found that using similar technique for residential buildings
in Andalusia, Spain could potentially save 295 MWh of
electricity per year. Likewise, greening of roof tops in humid,
tropical/subtropical climates has good thermal performance
due to greater latent heat dissipation and can prevent most
of the solar heat from being conducted into the building [71].
In the context of ZEBs, however, these energy-efficient
measures might not be suitable because of the limited roof
space for installing renewable energy systems such as PVs
and wind turbines. A compromise needs to be made between
these two conflicting requirements.
2.2. Internal conditions
The internal heat sources and the maximum allowable indoor
temperature have significant influence on cooling requirements in
the built environment [72]. A recent review of the work on the
impact of climate change on building energy use found that mea-
sures addressing the indoor design conditions and lighting load
density (LLD) could have great energy-saving and mitigation po-
tential [73]. The former can be readily applied to both new and

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4 D.H.W. Li et al. / Energy xxx (2013) 1e10
existing buildings with minimal cost implications. This is important
in that the majority are existing buildings and it will take decades to
gradually replace them. The latter affects not only the energy use
for electric lighting but also air conditioning, especially in cooling-
dominated buildings in warmer climates. Building energy man-
agement systems can help regulate the appropriate indoor thermal
conditions and lighting levels [74]. Key issues related to the indoor
conditions and internal heat loads are elaborated as follows:
 Indoor design conditions e It has been shown that raising and
lowering the thermostat settings during the hot summer
months and in winter can greatly reduce the cooling and
heating requirements. For instance, a survey of 1134 homes in
England found wide variation in thermostat settings which, in
the interest of energy efficiency and sustainable development,
could form the foundation of a “social norm” programme
aimed at reducing temperatures in “overheated” homes [75].
On the cooling side, a 6% reduction in energy use for HVAC for
every 1  C increase in the SST (summer set point temperature)
was reported for air-conditioned office buildings in Sydney and
a 69% reduction in peak demand (SST from 23.9  C to 26.9  C)
for residential buildings in Las Vegas [76,77]. Since the early
work on adaptive thermal comfort for naturally ventilated (or
free-running) buildings in the late 1990s, this approach has
been extended to the studies of hybrid ventilation (mixed
mode) and fully air-conditioned buildings, and the recent
advance in adaptive thermal comfort approach may take credit
for widening the range of acceptable indoor temperature [78e
80]. It is generally agreed that a wider temperature range tends
to consume less energy than a narrow one. It is, however, less
certain that how far building occupants are willing to accept
such changes. It has been argued that, in the long run, this may
prove unsustainable as early results indicate “much colder” and
“much warmer” thermal sensation in some green buildings
adopting the adaptive approach [81]. More work is required,
especially in the area of post-occupancy surveys.
 Internal heat loads e it has been estimated that a reduction in
1  C summer overheating can be achieved by lowering the
internal heat loads by 10 W/m2 [82]. This helps to avoid the
need for cooling in naturally ventilated buildings, and reduce
the cooling energy requirements in air-conditioned premises. It
has also been shown that electric LLD (lighting load density)
exerts great influence on the thermal and energy performance
of buildings in different climates, and is a key design variable in
energy efficiency consideration [83]. Early work on the prog-
ress and potential of energy-efficient lighting systems (lamps,
ballasts, fixtures, controls, and other related design issues) had
indicated good energy e saving potential in developing and
industrialized countries [84]. More recently, the advance in
lighting technologies (e.g. dimmable electronic ballasts, digital
controls and LED (light-emitting diode) lamps) has generated a
lot of interest in promoting the practice of more energy-
efficient lighting designs [85e90]. We believe that this devel-
opment (especially the technology advance made in LED
lamps) is conducive to achieving better energy efficiency and
sustainability.
2.3. Building services systems
Among the building services installations, HVAC and electric
lighting are the two major energy-consuming items in buildings
(especially cooling-dominated non-residential buildings) account-
ing for 40e60% and 20e30% of the total energy consumption,
respectively [91,92]. Major HVAC energy-efficient measures are
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variable air volume air conditioning systems [93], variable speed
drives for fans and pumps [94,95] and high COP (coefficient of
performance) chiller plants with optimal control [96,97]. To have a
better understanding of the underlying issues in a more systematic
manner, we have deliberately described each key measure indi-
vidually. It should be pointed out that in many building develop-
ment projects, more often than not, these measures are inter-
related to each other. Take an office building in London as an
example, where the room air is extracted through a ventilated
cavity of a triple glazing system before returning to the air condi-
tioning unit; the building envelope becomes part of the HVAC
system and vice versa [98]. Likewise, daylighting involves the
design of building envelope and electric lighting and directly affects
the internal conditions, which in turn has an impact on the HVAC
system. To fully assess the effectiveness of both individual and
multiple energy-efficient measures, it is necessary to consider the
dynamic interactions between the different design variables of the
building envelope and the building services systems as well as the
indoor conditions and the prevailing outdoor climates [99].
3. Renewable energy and other technologies
Even adopting the best energy-efficient measures available,
energy will still be required to power the day-to-day running of a
building. For ZEBs, this is achieved through the use of renewable
energy and other technologies (see Table 1 for a summary of the
technologies used in some recent case studies). Major technologies
[13,100,101] commonly adopted are (the first four are usually on-
site applications whereas the last one is off-site):
 PV (Photovoltaic) and BIPV (building-integrated photovoltaic)
 Wind turbines
 Solar thermal (solar water heaters)
 Heat pumps
 District heating and cooling
3.1. PV (Photovoltaic) and BIPV (building-integrated photovoltaic)
PV is one of the most promising renewable energy technologies
in achieving sustainable development [102,103]. All the ZEBs case
studies shown in Table 1 adopted some sorts of PV technology. In
urban and suburban areas, PV modules/arrays are often mounted
on roof tops of houses as well as non-residential buildings (e.g.
offices, hotels, schools). To maximize the number of PV modules
installed and hence the electrical power generated, other facades of
the building envelope are sometimes utilized. Such system is
termed BIPV (building-integrated photovoltaic). BIPV helps to in-
crease the power generated per unit floor area of the building,
making solar energy more viable as an alternative and/or supple-
ment to the electricity grid. This, however, tends to have restricted
view affecting natural daylight penetration. Recent work using
semi-transparent PV modules for the building envelope of an office
building in subtropical Hong Kong has demonstrated that the dual
function of electricity generation and allowing daylight to enter the
interior spaces to facilitate daylighting designs is practicable [104].
Another recent development to increase the energy efficiency of PV
is the HPVT (hybrid photovoltaic thermal) system. In general, a
solar cell has a 9e18% solar-to-electric conversion efficiency (i.e.
more than 80% of the solar radiation received is not converted into
electricity, but either reflected or dissipated as thermal energy).
This causes an increase in the working temperature of the solar cell
and leads to a lower conversion efficiency. An HPVT system makes
use of thermoelectric cooling modules to reduce the solar cell
temperature and takes advantage of the hot water produced by the
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waste heat generation. HPVT thus generates both electrical and
thermal energy [102,105].
The electricity generated is used to power the electrical demand
of the respective building, and for grid-connected PV/BIPV systems,
any surplus will then be fed directly to the local power grid by some
sort of metering/connection arrangement. The output power and
system efficiency of a PV system vary during different times of the
day and different seasons of the year subject to the prevailing local
climatic conditions in general and the amount of solar radiation
available in particular. Information on the daily and seasonal pat-
terns would enable architects and engineers to have a better un-
derstanding of the likely PV system performance in the design and
analysis process. These data can be determined through on-line
monitoring and on-site measurements of PV systems in operation
[106,107]. Exploring PV-generated electricity on-site and exporting
any excess power to the local utility grid are an important strategy
to increase the share of renewable energy within the grid. A recent
study on large-scale integration of PVs in cities has estimated that
PV systems can cater for 35% of the total electricity consumption
[108]. This alleviates the burden on fossil fuels and helps to reduce
the associated CO2 emissions. However, the wide diffusion of PV
generation may cause, among other things, power instability and
compromise the quality of existing power grid structure. More
work on “smart grids” is required. Furthermore, ZEBs should ideally
be designed to function in synergy with the local utility grid and not
putting extra stress on the existing power infrastructure.
3.2. Wind turbines
Wind power generation differs from conventional thermal
generation due to the stochastic nature of wind. Reliable wind
power forecasting plays an important role in the design and anal-
ysis of wind turbine systems, and is crucial in dealing with the
challenges of balancing the supply and demand in any electricity
system [109]. In general, solar and wind availability tends to have
some complementary characteristics (i.e. when solar availability is
low, wind availability tends to be high, and vice versa), which
suggests that solar energy and wind power can, to a certain degree,
compensate each other during different times of the year. This has
led to the development of hybrid PV-wind power generation sys-
tems both at utility scale as well as small autonomous systems
[110e112]. And it was found that hybrid systems had higher energy
performance than either PV or wind alone. For ZEBs, whether single
or hybrid is adopted, the challenge would be grid stability. Though
not specific to ZEBs applications, Liu et al. [113] highlighted the
importance of grid stability in the integration of large-scale fluc-
tuating renewable energy with the existing electricity infrastruc-
ture. Again, more work is required in this area.
3.3. Solar thermal (SWHs (solar water heaters))
In the residential sector, energy use for domestic hot water ac-
counts for a significant proportion of the total household energy
consumption. A recent study on the integration of a variety of new
water heaters (including SWHs) into a city-scale residential energy
end-use model for Osaka in Japan has shown great energy savings
and CO2 emissions reduction potential [114]. Over the years, there
has been new, innovative development in improving the overall
energy efficiency of SWHs, which can be readily applied to ZEBs. For
instance, a low profile integrated collector storage hot water system
was developed to address the architectural aesthetics issue [115];
and an SWH using a solar water pump was developed, where the
pump was powered by the steam produced from a flat plate col-
lector and the overall cost was comparable to a conventional SWH
[116]. Other recent advances in SWHs include: a two-phrase
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thermosyphon SWH, the best charge efficiency of the system is 82%
which is higher than conventional SWHs [117]; an SWH using
stationary V-trough collector with promising results in both optical
efficiency of the reflector and the overall thermal performance of
the system [118]; and a solar combisystem that simultaneously
fulfils domestic hot water and space heating requirements [119].
3.4. Heat pumps
Heat pumps offer viable alternatives of recovering heat from
different energy sources for use in various building applications.
Recent progress in heat pump technologies focuses on advanced
cycle designs for both heat- and work-actuated systems, improving
cycle components and working fluids, and exploiting wider utili-
zation and applications [120]. The coefficient of performance (COP,
a measure of the efficiency) of heat pumps is typically between 3
and 5. ASHPs (air-source heat pumps) tend to have COP close to the
lower end of the range. To improve energy performance, ASHPs can
be integrated with solar collectors so that energy can be supplied to
the evaporator at a temperature higher than the ambient outdoor
air, with increasing capacity and higher COP [121]. During peak
heating/cooling periods, the prevailing ambient temperatures may
limit the capacity of an ASHP and cause it to run at a lower effi-
ciency. In recent years, there have been a number of studies on the
development of GSHPs (ground-source heat pumps) to cover peak
load without the need for supplementary plants. The advantages
include lower operating cost, usually no outdoor unit, higher reli-
ability, longer unit life, energy conservation and CO2 emissions
reduction [122]. It is generally agreed that GSHPs can achieve better
operational efficiency in climates where building heating and
cooling requirements are well balanced all year round [123]. Most
buildings, however, have unbalanced loads dominated by either
cooling or heating requirements, especially in warmer and colder
climates. In cooling-dominated buildings in warmer climates, a lot
of heat will be transferred to the ground through the borehole heat
exchangers. Over a certain period, the heat will accumulate
resulting in the increment of the ground temperature, and thus
affecting the operational efficiency. This issue can be resolved by
using hybrid systems with supplementary heat rejecting units such
as cooling towers to remove the accumulated heat [124]. Hybrid
GSHPs with hot water heating can also be attractive for cooling-
dominated buildings with comparable hot water requirements
(e.g. washing and showers). Likewise, in heating-dominated
buildings in colder climates, GSHPs may cause a thermal heat
depletion of the ground. This will progressively decrease the
working fluid temperature and hence lower the system efficiency
[125]. The common approach adopted is using hybrid GSHPs with
solar collectors, which recharges the ground through the borehole
thus avoiding the heat depletion of the ground. The optimum
design is when solar heat produces domestic hot water during the
summer time and recharges the borehole during the winter
months. The correct sizing is to strike a balance between summer
hot water consumption and winter recharging requirements
[126,127].
3.5. District heating and cooling
DHC (district heating and cooling) can provide efficiency, envi-
ronmental and operation cost benefits to the communities and
energy consumers. DHC helps to replace less efficient equipment in
individual buildings with a more efficient central heating/cooling
system for space conditioning. DHC can contribute to reducing
climate change and other energy-related environmental concerns
such as air pollution, ozone depletion and acid precipitation [128].
A study in Japan found that the energy efficiency for cooling in DHC
6 D.H.W. Li et al. / Energy xxx (2013) 1e10

systems is superior to that in the case of individual cooling systems
because of the “concentration effect” and “grade of operation”
[129]. Recent studies of district heating in Denmark and Norway
have also shown that a substantial reduction in fuel demands, CO2
emissions and operating cost can be achieved by converting to
district heating [130,131]. Despite the initial investment cost (e.g.
distribution network infrastructure and possible building conver-
sion measures like switching to hydronic heating system), from the
socio-economic and environmental perspective district heating is
likely to be the most reasonable option for meeting the heating
loads of buildings. Besides, excess heat from ZEBs (via solar thermal
collectors and/or heat pumps) can meet some of the overall heating
demand within the network and thus benefit the district heating
systems by lowering its fuel consumption [101].
4. Sustainable development implications and further
research works
From the works reviewed so far, it is reasonable to say that ZEBs
and the associated design techniques and technologies are well
established, and will play an important part in any future sustain-
able development strategy. We, however, believe that there are at
least three areas that need further discussion and require more
research and development work e life-cycle cost and environ-
mental impacts, climate change and social policy issues. These are
outlined as follows:
 Life-cycle cost and environmental impacts e the ZEBs concept
raises the question of “in what scale and depth that energy-
efficient measures should be taken before renewable energy
technologies are considered to cater for the energy require-
ment” [19]. One approach is to conduct a life-cycle energy
analysis of the ZEBs including the renewables. There have been a
number of studies using the life-cycle energy accounting
technique to assess the energy efficiency and emissions impli-
cations of either the buildings [132,133] or the specific renew-
able technologies [134,135]. There is, however, very little work
on ZEBs. A recent study on a residential building in Denmark has
indicated that, from a cost-effectiveness perspective, energy
demand should be reduced to a minimum through energy-
efficient building designs leaving just a very small amount of
energy requirement to be covered by renewable energy gener-
ation [19]. A new term “LC-ZEB” (life-cycle zero energy building)
has also been suggested to emphasize the importance of
examining the entire ZEB on a life-cycle basis taking into ac-
count both the embodied energy and the operation [136]. An LC-
ZEB is a building in which the total energy consumed in oper-
ation plus the energy embodied within the building, its building
services and renewable energy systems do not excess the en-
ergy produced by its renewables over the lifetime of the
building. There remain many challenges to overcome in the life-
cycle analysis. For example, although GSHPs have proved useful
in reducing CO2 emissions compared with electric or natural gas
heating systems, it has been argued that the reduction is mar-
ginal when other life-cycle environmental impacts (e.g. abiotic
resource depletion of fossil fuels, ozone layer depletion poten-
tial and terrestrial ecotoxicity potential) are taken into consid-
eration [137]. It has also been pointed out that the fuel mix for
electricity generation is going to change in future subject to the
economic and political circumstances as well as the energy
resource availability, not to mention the complexity regarding
the electricity network losses in the calculation of energy sav-
ings and CO2 reduction in buildings [138e140]. These will
certainly affect the carbon footprints of the different conven-
tional and renewable energy technologies. More work is
required.
 Climate change e it is generally agreed that our climate is
changing and the temperature will rise gradually. Recent

Table 3
Comparison of 5 general circulation models for (dry-bulb temperature) DBT, (wet-bulb temperature) WBT and (global solar radiation) GSR (Ref. [144]).

City Model DBT WBT GSR Average scorec

a b
MBE RMSE MBE RMSE MBE RMSE
   
C Rank C Rank C Rank C Rank MJ/m2 Rank MJ/m2 Rank
Harbin BCCR-BCM2.0 3.81 4 6.15 4 3.21 5 5.25 4 1.38 4 3.98 4 4.2
GISS-AOM 1.59 2 3.49 2 0.16 1 2.61 2 0.70 1 3.32 2 1.7
INM-CM3.0 4.02 5 5.22 3 2.77 4 4.10 3 1.05 3 3.83 3 3.5
MIROC3.2-H 0.35 1 2.67 1 0.29 2 2.35 1 3.65 5 5.69 5 2.5
NCAR-CCSM3.0 2.66 3 8.69 5 1.65 3 7.27 5 1.03 2 2.90 1 3.2
Beijing BCCR-BCM2.0 6.89 4 7.54 3 4.59 4 5.24 3 1.46 1 2.76 1 2.7
GISS-AOM 3.24 2 4.02 2 2.44 2 3.33 2 2.01 4 3.09 3 2.5
INM-CM3.0 7.28 5 7.96 4 5.58 5 6.15 4 1.87 2 2.90 2 3.7
MIROC3.2-H 2.69 1 3.47 1 1.86 1 2.70 1 4.20 5 4.81 5 2.3
NCAR-CCSM3.0 5.62 3 8.40 5 4.35 3 6.75 5 1.92 3 3.93 4 3.8
Shanghai BCCR-BCM2.0 0.91 1 1.93 1 0.63 1 1.92 1 2.53 2 4.01 1 1.2
GISS-AOM 3.28 5 4.76 4 2.70 5 4.07 3 4.01 3 4.80 3 3.8
INM-CM3.0 3.16 4 4.71 3 2.51 4 4.10 4 4.57 4 5.37 4 3.8
MIROC3.2-H 1.00 2 2.08 2 1.37 3 2.18 2 5.20 5 6.03 5 3.2
NCAR-CCSM3.0 1.79 3 5.13 5 0.86 2 4.52 5 2.24 1 4.15 2 3.0
Kunming BCCR-BCM2.0 3.00 5 3.52 5 0.52 1 1.97 1 0.13 1 3.56 1 2.3
GISS-AOM 0.52 4 1.47 1 2.23 5 2.60 3 4.41 4 5.79 4 3.5
INM-CM3.0 0.14 1 3.40 4 1.32 3 3.46 5 3.77 2 5.41 2 2.8
MIROC3.2-H 0.23 2 1.68 2 1.87 4 2.29 2 4.15 3 5.50 3 2.7
NCAR-CCSM3.0 0.23 2 3.34 3 0.59 2 2.98 4 4.82 5 6.76 5 3.5
Hong Kong BCCR-BCM2.0 1.32 4 2.12 2 0.36 2 1.85 2 2.53 1 4.50 1 2.0
GISS-AOM 0.60 2 2.61 3 0.18 1 1.99 3 6.18 5 7.22 5 3.2
INM-CM3.0 2.92 5 3.64 5 2.45 5 3.11 5 5.45 4 7.01 4 4.7
MIROC3.2-H 0.06 1 1.77 1 0.69 3 1.75 1 5.08 3 6.37 3 2.0
NCAR-CCSM3.0 0.99 3 2.62 4 0.84 4 2.62 4 3.55 2 4.59 2 3.2
P
a
MBE ¼ f ni¼ 1 ðPi  Mi Þg=n (Pi ¼ prediction, Mi ¼ measured data, n ¼ 252 for Hong Kong, n ¼ 348 for the 4 mainland cities).
P
b
RMSE ¼ f ni¼ 1 ðPi  Mi Þ2 =ng1=2 :
c
Arithmetic mean of the 6 rankings.

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 D.H.W. Li et al. / Energy xxx (2013) 1e10
reviews of the impact of climate change on the energy sector in
general [141] and the energy use in the built environment in
particular [73] have highlighted the vulnerability of energy
systems and buildings to climate change. Specific to ZEBs, it has
been found that though yearly variations in total building en-
ergy use are relatively small, the impact of energy excess and
storage issues in relation to the zero energy target is significant.
Multi-year simulation taking climate change into consideration
should be used for climate-sensitive ZEBs design and analysis
[142]. This is in contrast to the representative weather year (e.g.
TMY (typical meteorological year) and TPCY (typical principal
component year)) usually adopted for hourly building energy
simulation analysis [143]. This leads to the question of climate
model selection. For instance, Wan et al. [144] compared the
performance of five GCMs (general circulation models) in
terms DBT (dry-bulb temperature), WBT (wet-bulb tempera-
ture) and GSR (global solar radiation) in different climate
zones. A model comparison is shown in Table 3. It can be seen
that performance of the five models could vary greatly in
different climate zones and for different meteorological vari-
ables. More work on the selection of climate models appro-
priate for building energy simulation studies is required.
Furthermore, in recent years there have been many studies on
district heating but very little on district cooling. Global
warming will lead to less heating requirements especially in
colder climates and vice versa in warmer climates for cooling
requirements. Therefore, more efforts should be directed to a
better understanding of the cost- and environment-
effectiveness of district cooling particularly in the context of
urban and city planning. In addition, solar-powered cooling,
though not yet widely adopted, has good energy-saving and
mitigation potential especially in hot climates because building
peak cooling load and maximum solar intensity tend to occur
at about the same time [73,145,146].
 Social policy issues e energy is a key component in any overall
sustainable development strategy, and it is important to
monitor the effects of energy policy in the social, economic and
environmental dimensions. The main drivers of key indicators
of energy demand developed in most energy use and emissions
forecast studies are socio-economic parameters [147,148]. It
has been argued that a positive attitude towards energy and
sustainability needs to be encouraged and maintained among
the general public. “Economic and environmental vision”
should be accompanied by an equally important “social vision”
[7,149,150]. For instance, a recent case study on a grid-
connected PV system in subtropical Hong Kong has shown
that, based on economic ground alone, PV is not viable due to
the long payback period of over 70 years. However, if the
embodied energy is taken into account, the payback period is
greatly reduced to less than 10 years [106]. A positive social
attitude towards the environment and sustainable develop-
ment could sway the decision in favour of renewable energy.
Furthermore, it has also been found that people with “pro-
environmental” attitude tend to be more “forgiving” in
accepting their immediate indoor built environment in green
buildings [151]. This could have far-reaching implications for
energy savings and sustainable development in that the
adaptive thermal comfort approach mentioned earlier (see
Section 2.2) could be more widely adopted in both “free-
running” and air-conditioned buildings if the general public are
willing to tolerate a larger temperature range in buildings. In
transition to a sustainable society, a rigorous and profound
respect for the world around us is necessary and indispensable.
Again, more work is required in the socio-economic and
environmental area.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.01.070
7
5. Conclusions
We have reviewed works pertinent to ZEBs (zero energy
buildings) and discussed sustainable development implications.
The conclusions are:
 There is a growing interest in the potential of ZEBs to help
alleviate the problems concerning the depletion of energy re-
sources and the deterioration of the environment. Broadly
speaking, ZEBs involve two strategies e minimizing the need
for energy use in buildings through EEMs (energy-efficient
measures) and adopting RETs (renewable energy and other
technologies) to meet the remaining energy needs.
 Among the EEMs highlighted, several salient features have been
identified. First, thermal insulation is less effective in cooling-
dominated buildings with large internal heat loads in warmer
climates. Attention should be paid to avoid over-insulation,
which could result in an increase in energy use for space condi-
tioning. Second, reflective/green roofs might not be appropriate
for ZEBs because of the conflicting roof space requirements with
renewable energy such as PVs and wind turbines. Third,
daylighting and recent advance in lighting technologies (e.g.
dimmable electronic ballasts, digital controls and LED lamps)
have great energy-saving potential. Fourth, more work on post-
occupancy surveys is needed to establish whether a wider in-
door temperature range would be acceptable.
 RETs cover photovoltaic/building-integrated photovoltaic,
wind turbines, solar thermal (solar water heaters), heat pumps,
and district heating/cooling. In general, most of the RETs are
rather well established. However, the wide diffusion of PV and
wind turbines generation may cause, among other things, po-
wer instability and compromise the quality of existing power
grid structure. ZEBs should ideally be designed to function in
synergy with the local utility grid and not putting extra stress
on the existing power infrastructure. More work on “smart
grids” and grid stability is required.
 ZEBs will play an increasingly important role in sustainable
development. To enhance this, more works in three areas are
required e life-cycle cost and environmental impacts analysis,
climate change, and social policy issues.
Acknowledgements
The work described in this paper was fully supported by a Public
Policy Research Exercise grant from the Research Grants Council of
the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China [Project no.
9056002 (CityU 1011-PPR-10)].
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Please cite this article in press as: Li DHW, et al., Zero energy buildings and sustainable development implications e A review, Energy (2013),
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