PROPOSAL OF A NORWEGIAN ZEB DEFINITION: ASSESSING THE IMPLICATIONS FOR DESIGN

Conceptually a Zero Emission Building (ZEB) is a building with greatly reduced energy demand and able to generate electricity (or other carriers) from renewable sources in order to achieve a carbon neutral balance. However, a clear and agreed definition of Zero Emission Building (ZEB) is yet to be achieved, both internationally and in Norway. However, it is understood that both the definition and the surrounding energy supply system will affect significantly the way buildings are designed to achieve the ZEB goal. A formal definition of ZEB is characterized by a set of criteria that are: the system boundary, feeding-in possibilities, balance object, balancing period, credits, crediting method, energy performance and mismatch factors. For each criterion different options are available, and the choice of which options are more appropriate to define ZEBs may depend on the political targets laying behind the promotion of ZEBs, hence may vary from country to country. This paper focuses on two of these ...