Low-energy building A low-energy house is characterized by an energy-efficient design and technical features which enable it to provide high living standards and comfort with low energy consumption and carbon emissions. Traditional heating and active cooling systems ...

s, which include

zero-energy building A Zero Energy Building (ZEB), also known as a Net Zero Energy (NZE) building, is a building with net zero energy consumption, meaning the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis is equal to the amount of renewable energy c ...

passive house "Passive house" (german: Passivhaus) is a voluntary standard for energy efficiency in a building, which reduces the building's ecological footprint. It results in ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or coo ...

s and

green building Green building (also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from planni ...

s, may use any of a large number of techniques to lower energy use. The following are some of the techniques used to achieve low-energy buildings, which excludes

energy generation In electricity generation, a generator is a device that converts motive power (mechanical energy) or fuel-based power (chemical energy) into electric power for use in an external electrical circuit, circuit. Sources of mechanical energy include s ...

(microgeneration).

Improvements to building envelope

* Active daylighting *

Barra system The Barra system is a passive solar building technology developed by Horazio Barra in Italy. It uses a collector wall to capture solar radiation in the form of heat. It also uses the thermosiphon effect to distribute the warmed air through channe ...

Brise soleil ''Brise soleil'', sometimes ''brise-soleil'' (; ), is an architectural feature of a building that reduces heat gain within that building by deflecting sunlight. More recently, vertical Brise soleil have become popular. Both systems allow low-l ...

Cool roof Reflective surfaces or ground-based albedo modification (GBAM) is a solar radiation management method of enhancing the Earth's albedo (the ability to reflect the visible, infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths of the sun, reducing heat transfer to ...

and

green roof A green roof or living roof is a roof of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and a growing medium, planted over a waterproofing membrane. It may also include additional layers such as a root barrier and drainage ...

Daylighting Daylighting is the practice of placing windows, skylights, other openings, and Reflective surfaces (climate engineering), reflective surfaces so that sunlight (direct or indirect) can provide effective internal lighting. Particular attention is ...

Double envelope house A double envelope house is a passive solar house design which collects solar energy in a solarium and passively allows the warm air to circulate around the house between two sets of walls, a double building envelope. This design is from 1975 by ...

Earth sheltering An earth shelter, also called an earth house, earth bermed house, or underground house, is a structure (usually a house) with earth (soil) against the walls, on the roof, or that is entirely buried underground. Earth acts as thermal mass, making ...

* Energy plus house *

Fluorescent lighting A fluorescent lamp, or fluorescent tube, is a low-pressure mercury-vapor gas-discharge lamp that uses fluorescence to produce visible light. An electric current in the gas excites mercury vapor, which produces short-wave ultraviolet ligh ...

compact fluorescent lamp A compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), also called compact fluorescent light, energy-saving light and compact fluorescent tube, is a fluorescent lamp designed to replace an incandescent light bulb; some types fit into light fixtures designed for inca ...

, and

LED lighting An LED lamp or LED light bulb is an electric light that produces light using light-emitting diodes (LEDs). LED lamps are significantly more energy-efficient than equivalent incandescent lamps and can be significantly more efficient than mos ...

History of passive solar building design The passive solar design of buildings includes consideration of their orientation to the sun and their thermal mass, factors which have been incorporated to a greater or lesser extent in vernacular architecture for thousands of years. Ancient Greeks ...

Low-energy house A low-energy house is characterized by an energy-efficient design and technical features which enable it to provide high living standards and comfort with low energy consumption and carbon emissions. Traditional heating and active cooling systems ...

Passive daylighting Passive may refer to: * Passive voice, a grammatical voice common in many languages, see also Pseudopassive * Passive language, a language from which an interpreter works * Passivity (behavior), the condition of submitting to the influence of on ...

Passive house "Passive house" (german: Passivhaus) is a voluntary standard for energy efficiency in a building, which reduces the building's ecological footprint. It results in ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or coo ...

Passive solar In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store, reflect, and distribute solar energy, in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer. This is called passive solar design because, unli ...

Passive solar building design In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store, reflect, and distribute solar energy, in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer. This is called passive solar design because, unli ...

Quadruple glazing Standard quadruple glazed window - openable The quadruple glazing, Q-Air, on Deg 8 building in Oslo, Norway (2020). Renovation brings Ug value of 0,29 W/(m2K) -value 20Quadruple glazing (quadruple-pane insulating glazing) is a type of insulated ...

Solar energy Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of technologies such as solar power to generate electricity, solar thermal energy (including solar water heating), and solar architecture. It is an essenti ...

Superinsulation Superinsulation is an approach to building design, construction, and retrofitting that dramatically reduces heat loss (and gain) by using much higher levels of insulation and airtightness than normal. Superinsulation is one of the ancestors of t ...

Sustainable architecture Sustainable architecture is architecture that seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings through improved efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, development space and the ecosystem at large. Sustainable ...

Sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...

Trombe wall A Trombe wall is a massive equator-facing wall that is painted a dark color in order to absorb thermal energy from incident sunlight and covered with a glass on the outside with an insulating air-gap between the wall and the glaze. A Trombe wall is ...

Windcatcher A windcatcher, wind tower, or wind scoop ( ar, برجيل ; fa, بادگیر) is a traditional architectural element used to create cross ventilation and passive cooling in buildings. Windcatchers come in various designs: unidirectional, bid ...

Zero energy building A Zero Energy Building (ZEB), also known as a Net Zero Energy (NZE) building, is a building with net zero energy consumption, meaning the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis is equal to the amount of renewable energy c ...

Zero heating building Zero-heating building or nearly zero-heating building (nZHB) is a building having essentially zero heating demand, defined as having heating demand, Q’NH, less than 3 kWh/(m2a). The zero-heating building is intended for use in heating-dominated ar ...

Improvements to heating, cooling, ventilation and water heating

Absorption refrigerator An absorption refrigerator is a refrigerator that uses a heat source (e.g., solar energy, a fossil-fueled flame, waste heat from factories, or district heating systems) to provide the energy needed to drive the cooling process. The system uses tw ...

Annualized geothermal solar Seasonal thermal energy storage (STES), also known as inter-seasonal thermal energy storage, is the storage of heat or cold for periods of up to several months. The thermal energy can be collected whenever it is available and be used whenever nee ...

Earth cooling tubes A ground-coupled heat exchanger is an underground heat exchanger that can capture heat from and/or dissipate heat to the ground. They use the Earth's near constant subterranean temperature to warm or cool air or other fluids for residential, agric ...

Geothermal heat pump A ground source heat pump (also geothermal heat pump) is a heating/cooling system for buildings that uses a type of heat pump to transfer heat to or from the ground, taking advantage of the relative constancy of temperatures of the earth through ...

Heat recovery ventilation Heat recovery ventilation (HRV), also known as mechanical ventilation heat recovery (MVHR), is an energy recovery ventilation system which works between two air sources at different temperatures. Heat recovery is a method which is used to reduce ...

* Hot water heat recycling *

Passive cooling Passive cooling is a building design approach that focuses on heat gain control and heat dissipation in a building in order to improve the indoor thermal comfort with low or no energy consumption. This approach works either by preventing heat from ...

Renewable heat Renewable heat is an application of renewable energy referring to the generation of heat from renewable sources; for example, feeding radiators with water warmed by focused solar radiation rather than by a fossil fuel boiler. Renewable heat technol ...

Seasonal thermal energy storage Seasonal thermal energy storage (STES), also known as inter-seasonal thermal energy storage, is the storage of heat or cold for periods of up to several months. The thermal energy can be collected whenever it is available and be used whenever nee ...

(STES) *

Solar air conditioning Solar air conditioning, or "solar-powered air conditioning", refers to any air conditioning (cooling) system that uses solar power. This can be done through passive solar design, solar thermal energy conversion, and photovoltaic conversion (sunli ...

* Solar hot water

Energy rating systems

EnerGuide EnerGuide is the official Government of Canada mark associated with the labelling and rating of the energy consumption or energy efficiency of specific products. The EnerGuide's efficiency percent is calculated by dividing the power output by power ...

(Canada) * Home energy rating (US) *

House Energy Rating The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) is a national scheme to measure the energy efficiency of a residential dwelling in Australia. An accredited software tool assesses the home based on a variety of criteria and produces an energ ...

(Australia) * LEED - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design *

National Home Energy Rating The National Home Energy Rating Scheme (NHER) is both a UK accreditation scheme for energy assessors and a rating scale for the energy efficiency of housing. The NHER was owned and operated by National Energy Services (NES). Until 2011, NES was ...

(UK) {{DEFAULTSORT:Low-energy building techniques Techniques Sustainable building Architecture lists Energy-related lists Lists related to renewable energy