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,rnconstruct and showcase healthy, resource efficient, affordable, net-zero energy houses. A netzerornenergy house is one that produces as much energy as it uses for all purposes, with thernproduced energy coming from renewable sources on the house property.rnThe demonstration initiative was open to all builders in Canada who were willing torndesign and construct low-rise residential buildings that met several criteria including minimumrnenvelope energy-efficiency, and onsite renewable energy generation. Eighty proposals werernreceived in two rounds and a total of 15 were selected for construction. Designs did not have tornachieve the net-zero energy target to qualify, but did have to be significantly more energyefficientrnthan current houses. The selection criteria were heavily weighted in favor of those thatrnachieved modeled net-zero energy consumption, and two-thirds did.rnRenewable energy sources include PV, PV-thermal, solar DHW, solar air heating, andrnsolar-combi systems (space heat and hot water). Energy saving strategies include ground sourcernheat pumps, drain water heat recovery, and super-insulated airtight building envelopes.rnAll Equilibrium? houses must go through one-year post-occupancy monitoring torndetermine whether they meet their energy targets, and many (will) have more detailedrnmonitoring of individual systems, including real-time internet displays of PV generation.rnThis paper describes the design process, examples of the houses, initial energy usagernresults for three projects, and lessons learned.