Optimal utilization of Renewable Energy Sources in nearly Zero Energy Buildings – A review

Abstract

Renewable energy is important nowadays, not only as an environmental scientific issue, but as an obligation with regard to European Union Regulations. Specifically, the 2020 European Energy Strategy: “Energy 2020 – A strategy for competitive, sustainable and secure energy” requires each European Nation to increase their renewable energy penetration as well their total energy efficiency by 20% and to reduce their total emissions coming from fossil fuels by 20%, by the end of 2020. As a result, in recent years, scientific interest has increased toward the improvement of the different renewable energy technologies and their optimum utilization in different applications such as smart grids, micro grids, distributed generation at low voltage level networks, zero energy buildings and so forth. The paper mainly focuses on nearly Zero Energy Buildings and the optimum utilization of the renewable energy generation installed in them. This can be achieved through various methodologies, among which artificial intelligence models, which take into account different factors such as building location, building construction materials, local weather data, payback period, electricity demand and many others that will lead to meaningful and useful results. A review of the above is made with regard to the various forms of renewable energy technologies. In particular, the main emphasis is given to results that focus on the balance between the electricity demand along with the renewable generation of the building itself, including storage, with the lowest installation cost and the minimal payback period, so that the requirements for a nearly Zero Energy Building are met.