Canada’s Equilibrium? Housing Demonstration Initiative: Net-Zero Energy Houses in Cold Climates

摘要

The objective of the Equilibrium? Housing Demonstration Initiative is to design, construct and showcase healthy, resource efficient, affordable, net-zero energy houses. A netzero energy house is one that produces as much energy as it uses for all purposes, with the produced energy coming from renewable sources on the house property. The demonstration initiative was open to all builders in Canada who were willing to design and construct low-rise residential buildings that met several criteria including minimum envelope energy-efficiency, and onsite renewable energy generation. Eighty proposals were received in two rounds and a total of 15 were selected for construction. Designs did not have to achieve the net-zero energy target to qualify, but did have to be significantly more energyefficient than current houses. The selection criteria were heavily weighted in favor of those that achieved modeled net-zero energy consumption, and two-thirds did. Renewable energy sources include PV, PV-thermal, solar DHW, solar air heating, and solar-combi systems (space heat and hot water). Energy saving strategies include ground source heat pumps, drain water heat recovery, and super-insulated airtight building envelopes. All Equilibrium? houses must go through one-year post-occupancy monitoring to determine whether they meet their energy targets, and many (will) have more detailed monitoring of individual systems, including real-time internet displays of PV generation. This paper describes the design process, examples of the houses, initial energy usage results for three projects, and lessons learned.