Energy efficiency's role in a zero energy building: simulating energy efficient upgrades in a residential test home to reduce energy consumption

With the steady rise in power consumption, automobile usage, and industrial production worldwide for the past century, countries have realized that meeting these ever-growing energy demands could potentially devastate the environment. In the United States, generating electrical power constitutes the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions and the majority of this power is used to electrify buildings both in the commercial and residential sectors. It is estimated that 21% of all electrical power generated in the United States is consumed by residential buildings. To reduce the total amount of electricity that need be generated (and therefore, the amount of pollution) governments have invested heavily into energy efficiency research especially in the major power consuming sector of residential buildings. The ultimate goal of energy efficient measures is to cut the power consumption of a building enough that all of the energy needs can be met by an on-site renewable energy system such as photovoltaic solar panels. This would result in what many call a “zero energy building.” This paper quantitatively investigates the effectiveness of potential energy efficient upgrades in a residential home through various building energy simulation techniques including the computer building load and energy requirement software entitled “Transient Analysis of Building Loads and Energy Requirements” or TABLER. Energy savings from energy efficient upgrades were investigated in the areas of residential lighting, building envelope infiltration mitigation, advanced insulating materials, advanced window technologies, electrical plug-load reduction strategies, and energy efficient appliance options. Results of simulations show significant energy savings for various energy efficient upgrades can be achieved either by a reduction in the electrical power consumed directly by the device (lighting, electronics, and appliances) or by a reduction in power consumption of the home heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) equipment used to remove or add heat to the conditioned space throughout the year. The effectiveness of individual upgrades as compared to the total investment required to implement them is a matter of opinion slanted by whether energy conservation or return on investment is the ultimate goal.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Author dc:creator

• Frye, Andrew Griffin

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dhamshala, Prakash R.
• Gunasekera, Sumith; Kazemersky, Philip
• College of Engineering and Computer Science

• Dwellings -- Environmental engineering

Licence

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en

Language dc:language

English, eng

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholar.utc.edu/theses/3

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.utc.edu:theses-1002