Justification for Zero-Energy Buildings
Why are ZEBs important? Residential and commercial buildings consume 40% of the primary energy and 71% of the total electricity in the United States.3 That is a huge burden on the electrical system, energy resource availability, emissions, and economic viability.
To make matters worse, energy use in the U.S. commercial sector is expected to grow by 1.6% per year—twice as fast as in the residential sector. It is being driven by economic expansion and population growth, which require more and more space each year.4 The total building area and its energy impact are increasing faster than all the energy conservation measures being taken and retrofits being made to buildings.
So how can new commercial buildings be constructed so that they are, in fact, ZEBs? And how can older buildings be retro- fitted to be environmentally sound, comfortable, economical, and energy efficient? In most cases, an older building cannot be a ZEB. However, research has shown that energy consump- tion and costs can be reduced significantly by applying some fairly simple energy-efficiency principles