Title: Reading
Course: GFM 101 Fundamentals of Green Facilities Management > Section: GFM 101 Fundamentals of Green Facilities Management

Reading

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Zero Net Energy… Possible For Residential Facilities Today

As the "zero energy" and "net zero energy" concepts are relatively new, there are not yet definitive, widely accepted zero-energy metrics. The Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have spearheaded much of the work on net zero energy buildings to date. NREL presents several definitions for "net zero energy", and they encourage building designers, owners, and operators to select the metric that best fits their project. The NREL publication Zero Energy Buildings: A Critical Look at the Definition (PDF 477 KB) explores definitions in detail, and it suggests four ways in which net zero energy may be defined:

- Net Zero Site Energy
- Net Zero Source Energy
- Net Zero Energy Costs
- Net Zero Energy Emissions

Site Energy refers to the energy consumed and generated at a site (e.g. a building), regardless of where or how that energy originated. In a net zero site energy building, for every unit of energy the building consumes over a year, it must generate a unit of energy.

Readings:

Click here to read from the U.S. Department of Energy an online articles about the New Zero Net-Energy Facility: A Test Bed for Home Efficiency.
Click here to read from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory an online article Zero Energy Buildings: A Critical Look at the Definition.
Click here to read from the National Institute of Building Sciences an online article Optimize Energy Use.
Click here to read from the U.S. Department of Energy an online article Improving the Energy Efficiency of Commercial Buildings.
Click here to view website of the U.S. Department of Energy that presents the Federal Energy Management Program.