Designing zero-energy buildings using advanced fuzzy cognitive maps

Abstract

Energy efficient buildings are able to provide effective solutions to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, support environmental-friendly energy management and facilitate significant energy savings. The concept of Zero-Energy Buildings is gaining a constant increasing focus. The use of Advanced Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (AFCMs) as a new modelling methodology to provide energy performance indicators in a quantified manner that will drive the appropriate integration of required renewable energy generation, in order to design a (nearly) Zero-Energy Building (nZEB) is considered. The new approach is used to calculate the energy balance of buildings in alternative climate contexts and thus to explore their energy efficiency in six use cases. Simulation results and observations show that AFCMs could provide valuable insight to design and development issues of nZEBs.