Energy Simulation of a Building Envelope for NetZero Energy Home (NZEH) Design

Energy consumption due to residential building operation is a crucial issue in cold-climate regions. In order to alleviate the energy demand from residential building operation, the concept of NetZero energy homes (NZEHs) has emerged as a solution. Appropriate design of the building envelope for NZEHs, (including insulation type and thickness, configuration, and other parameters), is a key to ensuring a high level of energy performance of NZEHs, and energy simulation provides a tool to investigate the energy performance of design options for each component of the NZEH building envelope. HOT2000, which is a widely used energy simulation tool in Canada, is used for energy simulation in this research; in order to achieve the goal of simulation automation, the batch version of HOT2000 is utilized. The energy performance of design options is simulated for such main components of NZEH building envelope as main wall, exposed floor, attic, basement wall, and basement floor, and, based on the simulation results, the functions and charts of energy performance are developed for these components. This research contributes to the body of research in this area by analyzing the energy performance of design options for NZEH building envelope.