The 11th International Renewable Energy Congress (IREC 2020)
Implementation of Photovoltaic Systems for Net-
Zero Energy Residential Buildings: Literature
Review
Abdussalam A. H. Khamis
Department of Electrical Engineering
College of Engineering Technology-Hoon
Hoon, Libya
abdussalam.khamis1@gmail.com
Abstract— Residential buildings consume up to 40% of total
global energy production annually. Making the residential and
commercial buildings less energy dependent is essential in
reduction of greenhouse gas affects. One type of such buildings
are known as Net-Zero Energy Building (ZEB). This paper
introduces a summary of scholar works, which have been
executed in the last decade to achieve Net-ZEB by using
photovoltaic systems. The paper summarizes latest scholar works
in providing exclusive definition of ZEB, which could be used to
increase public understanding of the technology globally. In
addition, the paper summarizes prominent work in the field of
using only PV systems to cover almost total residential lighting,
heating and cooling load demands using new technologies such as
reversible heat pumps for ZEBs.
Keywords— Photovoltaic System; Heating and Cooling; Zero
Energy Building; Reversible Heat Pump; Literature Review.
I. INTRODUCTION
Saving Earth ecosystem from being distorted by humankind
actions has been an issue all over the world. One of the main
steps is to reduce the CO2 emission. Most CO2 production
comes from generating electricity using conventional sources
of energy such as oil and natural gas. Residential load
consumes up to 40% from total annual produced electricity
globally [1]. Obviously, finding alternative ways to feed the
residential loads, such as using renewable sources of energy,
with electricity would be substantial in terms of reduction of
CO2 mission.
In this regard, there have been many attempts to reduce
residential buildings carbon footprint. The Europe Union for
instance set plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least
20% by 2020 from its level twenty years ago. The Europe plan
aims to reduce energy consumption and increase use of energy
from renewable resources specially for residential and
governmental buildings [2].
This paper provides thorough literature review to
summarize the engineering work to achieve Net-Zero Energy
Building. Therefore, the paper divided into five sections.
Section I is the introduction. Section II reviews the state of the
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Henrik Davisson
Department of Architecture and the Built Environment
Division of Energy and Building
Lund University, Sweden
Henrik.Davidsson@ebd.lth.se
art regarding the definition of zero energy buildings. Section III
reviews papers regarding to conventional techniques for zero
energy building in terms of designing and construction of
ZEBs. Section VI reviews the latest scientific works on
implementation of Photovoltaic (PV) systems for zero energy
buildings by using reversible heat pumps. Section V is the
conclusion.
II. DEFINITION OF ZERO ENERGY BUILDING
The first step to deal with the concept of a Zero Energy
Building (ZEB) is determining precise definition for the
subject. Within the last decade, there have been several
attempts to define ZEB based on multiple understandings of
the matter. It has been argued [1] that the concept of building
self-dependent houses is not new. In fact, this concept could be
tracing down even before inventing electricity. In this matter,
ZEB-technique could be applied on buildings that create
negative effects on surrounding environment. These buildings
are able to generate their own energy needs. ZEBs could also
be called natural energy autonomous houses and energy
independent houses. It is added [1] that in order to define a
building as ZEB, the definition should include:
1- Primary energy-unites of balance.
2- Total energy demand equals for operating the building
plus associated with occupancy.
3- Fixed maximum energy uses.
4- Distinguish between residential and non-residential
buildings.
5- Applications of renewable energy sources.
6- Regulation of grid building interaction.
In 2010, EU parliament and Council of European Union
issued an act regarding to ZEB application in the union [2].
Aiming to mitigate CO2, by 2020 all new governmental and
residential building should be near zero energy. This is part
of the solution for how to reduce greenhouse gas emission
20% of what it used to be in 1990. The act started with
providing inclusive definition of nearly ZEB. According to
EU regulation Act, Nearly ZEB is a building where most of
its energy needs (heating, cooling, and appliances power
requirements) should be covered by renewable energy
sources such as solar energy, wind energy, and geothermal
energy. By taking this step, EU become a global leader in
enforcing local authorities to be involved, and moving the
concept of ZEB from labs and universities to real actions. As
matter of facts, the EU countries have showed promising
progress to accomplish this goal. It is recorded that in
December 2018 were at least 30% of new buildings in
Europe met the EU definition of ZEB.
Since it is quit hard to meet all building energy
requirements from only renewable sources for a year. It has
been introduced [3] a new definition of ZEB. The definition
of ZEB should describe the annual energy exchange between
a building and electricity grid. In addition, seasonal and
monthly fluctuation in renewable energy sources production
has to be addressed well due to their role of the energy
exchange between buildings and the grids.
It is argued [4] that having ZEB under any circumstances
does not mean having zero energy cost. There are other costs,
which have to be considers such as grid use cost, initial cost,
investment cost, and taxation.
It is summarized [5] some of successful attempts to provide
precise definition of ZEBs. From the map in Fig. 1 for ZEB
projects worldwide, we can see that still Europe dominants
the market due to 2020 strategies and sincere commitment
among EU members on reduction of greenhouse gas effects.
Nevertheless, North America has some growing attention
toward ZEB technology.
Fig. 1: Map for ZEB Global Distribution [5].
There are two main definition of ZEB. One definition is
according to EU standards, and another is according to
American standards. It has been addressed [6] the slight
differences on definition of ZEB. In EU the definition is
mainly on reducing energy consumption and increasing
building energy saving. In US the definition is mainly on
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having an efficient building, where the building annual
energy demands is close to the energy produces by the
building itself.
III. DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF CONVENTIONAL ZERO
ENERGY BUILDINGS
Within the last decade literatures, there are numerous
technologies for achieving zero energy building in terms
of design and construction on buildings.
It is concluded [7] that PV system with good building
architectural design will play significant rules in
achieving ZEBs objective. Furthermore, a Heat pump in
addition to solar thermal collectors can be used to serve
the building heat demand in winter.
It is argued [8] that having aesthetic solar panel design
is in equal importance with high efficiency. Moreover, it
is shown [8] that PV panels on zero energy buildings
have to be reachable for maintenance and replacement.
Fig. 2 shows PV panel combined with a Chinese house’s
roof.
Fig. 2: PV Panel Combined in a Roof [8].
In order for ZEBs to be annually efficient, they should
balance power exchanging between the buildings and
grids. This balancing is known as Load Matching and
Grid Interaction indicators (LMGI) [9]. It is described [9]
that the differences between the concept of load matching
and the concept of grid interaction. The load matching
means measuring between the building generation and the
load profiles. In addition to previous load matching, grid
interaction has the same meaning and adding other
aspects of un-matching generation and load profile into
consideration.
It is indicated [10] that from design point of view, zero
energy buildings get to be part of a city cluster buildings.
Meaning that PV should be part of the building itself, and
does have to be integrated into cities landscape views.
Fig.3 illustrates a PV system design mounted on a
building, which has limited affects on the resounding
area.

Fig. 3: PV Panel mounted on a building [10].
Since some ZEBs have two systems, one is for appliances
demands (PV Panels) and another for hear demands (Thermal
Collectors), sometimes both system have to fully integrated to
the buildings design [11]. Fig.4 shows building integrated solar
thermal collector (STC) and PV panels.
Fig. 4: STC and PV connected on Buildings [11].
It is discussed [12] that designing and integration of PV
panels and thermal collectors. The paper summarizes
modern technologies in terms of building integrated PV
(BIPV) and building attached PV (BAPV), such as BIPV
foil products, BIPV tile products, BIPV module products,
BAPV, and Solar cell glazing products. Furthermore, the
paper states that advanced researches in the areas of solar
cell efficiency and reducing production cost are needed to
increase the market share of building integration.
It is discussed [13] that the energy balance has to be
measured over a specific period of time.
Achieving zero energy building is affected with design
and orientation of the building. It is stated [14] that a
maximum energy saving of eighty five floors building is
achieved with 70o tilt angle of the PV panel for east, south
and west orientation. In addition, comparing these PV
orientation facades, it is concluded that south façade
produces most of the total energy production from the
elevation in northern part of Earth.
It is stated [15] that in addition to the electricity
demand, solar electric driven hear pump operating by PV
system reduced the CO2 emission from a test case with
82% its previous level.
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It is described [16] that there are three criteria for ZEBs
to consider. The first criteria is how much energy the
building uses. The second criteria is how much
greenhouse gas emissions that can be accredited to the
building producing. The third criteria is the indoor
cooling and heating performance of the building. It is
presented [16] an analysis method to optimizing a ZEB to
meet the three criteria. The paper uses GenOpt and
artificial neural network (ANN) methods for optimization.
It is concluded that ANN provides faster optimization
results with poor solution comparing to GenOpt method.
It is introduced [17] a new technique to achieve ZEB
with lower heating and cooling demands. For instance, to
reduce the building Heat Ventilation and Air
Conditioning (HVAC) energy by 17.4% would reduce the
building energy demand by 9.7%.
It is suggested [18] that surrounded climate is
significant in reducing the building heating and cooling
demands. It is concluded that in addition to surrounded
climate, minimizing space thermal load is essential to
improve efficiency of ZEBs.
Paper [19] provides practical example of using several
energy sources for ZEBs. The building uses PV system,
biomass, and earth-air heat exchanger for electricity,
heating and cooling demands.
In hot climate, power from the grid is needed for night
cooling demands. It is presented [20] that hybrid
photovoltaic-thermal collector system, which can produce
cooling energy at nighttime by long wave radiation
exchange with the night sky and convection losses to the
ambient air.
It is concluded [21] that in hot summer and cold winter
climate as well as hot summer and warm winter climate
PV technology needs some sort of support by other
energy sources to server the building energy demand.
IV. ZERO ENERGY BUILDINGS WITH PV SYSTEMS AND
REVERSIBLE HEAT PUMPS
One of essential obstacles facing the technology of zero
energy buildings is cost associated with heating and
cooling loads. Some ZEBs techniques use solar thermal
collector for heating loads and chiller for cooling. Other
ZEBs techniques use other source of energy such as
geothermal for heating loads especially in cold climates.
This paper describes and discusses relevant papers in the
field.
Paper [22] introduces modern solar assisted heating and
cooling system using PV with electrically driven
reversible heat pump for heating and cooling. The
reversible heat pump operates based on vapour heat cycle.
 Therefore, the reversible heat pump produces cool air in
hot seasons, and produces warm air in cold seasons. In
addition, it can also be used to produce hot water as it is
illustrated in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5: A Hybrid PV-Grid System with Reversible Heat Pump [22].
It is indicated [23] that ZEBs, which use only PV
system as source of energy would have less than 7 years
payback period for PV systems . Furthermore, the scholar
work [23] by implemented steady state energy calculation
those PV systems are able to cover of 79% of ZEBs
annual energy demand.
Paper [24] represents new reversible heat pump/organic
rankine cycle. The pump is able to transfer solar energy
into warm and cold air based on ZEB demands. The
measured efficiency up to 4.2% is obtained at evaporation
temperature of 88 Co and condensation temperature of 25
Co with output power of 3.7 kW.
It is presented [25] a practical heating and cooling
system that is used in buildings to increase the buildings
energy using efficiency. The system represented in Fig. 6
has grid connected PV panel to operate vapour
compression chiller for cooling the building space. While
the buildings heat demand is covered by a boiler.
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Fig. 6: A System Convers Portion of Energy Used for Heating and
Cooling with Solar Energy [25].
It is stated [26] that ZEBs that use PV systems to cover
all buildings energy requirements have to be self-
consumption. The term self-consumption means that all
power produces by PV system consumed directly by the
building itself. This concept would be beneficial in
countries where subsides for PV electricity is being
removed gradually. The paper [26] states that in order to
have self-consumed ZEB the PV system has to be
combined with a battery system, and sometimes combine
with demand side management. The results from the case
study shows increase in building self-consumption by
13% to 24% with a 1 kWh system. Also, the system self-
consumption increased from 13% to 15 % by
implementing demand side management.
Paper [27] studies two heat pump performances in
warm climate where air conditioning and hot water are
needed. The one pump is known as multi-compressor heat
pump, and the second is known as inverter-driven heat
pump. The study shows that inverter-driven heat pump
reaches better seasonal energy efficiency ratio with
respect with multi-compressor heat pump. This means
that inverter-driven heat pump is considerable choice for
ZEBs that using PV systems as source of energy.
Paper [28] provides a novel approach to storing extra
electricity generated from PV systems for small-scale
systems below 100 kW. The storage system consists of a
heat pump and organic rankine cycle. The system can
achieve storage efficiency of 50% for commercially
available components of the heat pump.
 It is introduced [29] an innovative method to modified
cycle of reversible heat pump. The modified version of
the heat pump can help in turning a single-family house
into positive energy building.
Modern version of reversible heat pumps, which able to
convert heat into electricity and electricity into heat
depending on ZEBs requirements is represents in [30].
The paper can be used as mathematical background for
calculating performance of heat pumps and organic
rankine cycle based on constant efficiency analysis.
Among several potential applications of the modern
version of reversible heat pump, the paper states that it is
a good candidate to install in future zero energy buildings.
V. CONCLUSION
Since the residential buildings are responsible for
almost 40% of annual global energy consumption;
therefore, adapting the concept of zero energy building
(ZEB) is important in helping to reduce climate change.
Within the last decade, there are improvement made on
finding a definition of ZEB. From literature review, it is
concluded that ZEB is a building that using renewable
energy resources to annually produce the same , or more,
energy than it uses. In addition to ZEBs self-consumption
capability, these buildings should be design in way PV
systems and other renewable energy sources be fit
completely with the buildings design and compatible with
the surrounded areas. In order to mitigate initial cost of
ZEBs, they should be design with minimum sources of
energy such as using only PV panels to cover all the
building energy needs. Reversible heat pumps provide
promising solution to cover heating and cooling demands
without any extra need for other expensive alternative
such as solar collectors for heating.
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