Nearly (Net) Zero Energy Building

Energy use in buildings worldwide accounts for over 40% of primary energy use and 24% of greenhouse gas emissions. Simply increasing energy supply will not solve the current energy supply and security situation and associated environmental problems. Given the challenges related to climate change and resource shortages, making residential and non-residential buildings more energy and resource-efficient while maintaining thermal comfort and cost-effectiveness represents and enormous opportunity to save money and reduce pollution.
Accounting for around 60 percent of world energy demand, the APEC region is a net energy importer and its demand for energy is on the rise. Recently, some APEC developed economies set the goal to achieve Nearly (Net) Zero Energy Building (NZEB) and already launched some research programs and accomplished successful demonstration projects. How to share the existing experiences and best practices of NZEB to promote this idea among APEC region is the main focuses of this project which will benefit both the new building construct work and existing building retrofit work in both developed and developing economies.
This project was funded by the APEC-Energy Working Group: 03-2013A- Nearly (Net) Zero Energy Building Project, the Expert Group on Energy Efficiency & Conservation managed the implementation of the project. The goal of this project is to enhance mutual understanding of APEC economy’s latest progress in NZEB. The outcome of this project could be as a strong support for the APEC economies to promote NZEB in the future and also work as an important pillar for the existing APEC programs, which including APEC Energy Smart Communities Initiative (ESCI), APEC Smart Grids Initiative (ASGI) and APEC Low Carbon Model Town project (LCMT).
The project content includes:
Exchanging each economy’s latest policy and national goals to achieve NZEB in the future
Comparison of different similar definition of NZEB
Key findings and outcomes of the research programs in each economy
The future revision plan of building energy code towards NZEB
Related associations and alliances to promote NZEB
Valuable experiences from the demonstration projects
Two workshops were held within the project, first APEC-Net Zero Energy Building workshop was held on October 30th to 31st 2013, 60 participants from 12 economies attended the workshop, the first workshop focus on policies and definitions, research programs and latest technology progress and how building codes upgrading influence the work of NZEB. 80 II participants from 14 economies attended the second workshop on October 22nd to 23rd 2013, second workshop focus on monitoring results of pilot project and community and how to promote NZEB in the future in APEC region.
With the preparation of the report, the Project Overseer would like to support to initiate a boost for innovative NZEB among the APEC region – which will help to improve the efficiency and reduce the need for fossil fuel significantly, which will make great contribution to global climate change and emission reduction. The Project Overseer hopes that we can work together for that goal.
Although so many experts made great contributions to this report, it was prepared in a limited time; the Project Overseer will take responsible for the errors and mistakes in this report.