Automated energy simulation and analysis for NetZero Energy Home (NZEH) design

NetZero Energy Homes (NZEHs) have emerged as a solution to alleviate the energy demand from
residential building operation, where appropriate design of building envelope and mechanical
system is a means to achieving energy conservation and recovery for NZEHs. This research thus
proposes an informed decision making framework for NZEH building design based on an
automated energy simulation approach. The Batch Version of HOT2000 is utilized to achieve
automated single-factor and combined-factor simulations, and a total of 16 200 combinations of
building envelope and mechanical device design options are simulated for NZEH design. An NZEH
project in Edmonton, Canada, is utilized as the case study in this research. The initial design of
the NZEH results in an estimated energy deficit of 6048.0 MJ, accounting for 8.8% of the total
consumption, and, based on the combined-factor simulations results, improved design scenarios
are recommended for this NZEH. The simulation results of the initial design are also validated
using the monitored data, with the actual performance showing an energy deficit of 4.1% of
total consumption. Furthermore, such analysis as regression, factor importance ranking, and
temperature set-point simulation are also conducted for the NZEH building design. This research
proposes a framework to support informed design decision making for NZEHs, and builds a
baseline for future study.