Project

Net Zero Energy Buildings with Consumer-Focused Energy Management Control-An Economic and Societal Impact Analysis for India

A sustainable community is a trending topic which is being deliberately discussed over the decade, because of the tremendous increase in global energy consumption that can lead to depletion of energy resources. Fossil fuels have dominated electrical energy generation resulting in the rapid growth of carbon footprints into the atmosphere.

Buildings are major consumers of energy; approximately 40 % of the world’s primary energy is used by buildings. The building sector in India is growing very fast as the country expects 40 billion square meters of new construction by 2050. In India, the building sector consumes 33% of total energy annually. For a building to be energy efficient, it should consume less energy. The evolution of smart buildings has resulted in increased consumption of energy whereas the ancient vernacular architectures in India maintained low energy consumption in the buildings due to their traditional architectural wisdom. The net-zero energy buildings (NZEB) blend the traditional architectural wisdom with smart energy management techniques to support a sustainable and environmentally friendly transformation. NZEB is a building revolution that can emerge as a sustainable support for future buildings. NZEBs maintain an annual net zero import-export of energy in the building by delivering as much energy to the grid as consumed from it. This research work aims to develop a mathematical model for an energy-efficient management strategy to design smart gadgets for NZEB. The NZEB gadget enables consumer participation for effective utilization of electrical energy along with minimization of carbon footprints. This research work also focuses on maintaining maximum consumer energy comfort in a residential NZEB annually without any drain on electrical energy from the electrical grid. This work highlights the socio-economic benefits of adopting NZE buildings and further enables the consumer participation to limit energy wastage with reduced carbon emissions to meet long-term climatic goals. This research has collaborations with Durham University UK and Copenhagen School of Energy Infrastructure.

Collaborations with Universities / Industry Partnerships

Dr. Hongjian Sun  

Professor Department of Engineering Durham University, UK

Tooraj Jamasb Professor, Director

Department of Economics Copenhagen School of Energy Infrastructure