Analysis of environmental impacts and costs of a residential building over its entire life cycle to achieve nearly zero energy and low emission objectives

Abstract

Nowadays, European Union (EU) requests that all its members encourage Net-zero energy and emission in the buildings by 2050. There are multiple studies within the EU related to this field, but few of them are associated with environmental cost assessment and reduction. What can be the new strategies allowing to reduce ecological impact costs at the scale of the building? In response to this question, this research has been carried out, with, the main objective, to evaluate, analyse, and propose some scenarios allowing to design of residential buildings with nearly zero energy, low emission, and low cost throughout the world. The strategies detailed in this research can be applied and adapted in all the regions of the world. A life cycle assessment (LCA) of a typical building is carried out using the Pleiades software database comprising a Dynamic Thermal Simulation calculation engine (STD) making it possible to simulate the thermal in order to describe the energy behaviours of a building and its equipment. Four life cycle phases (construction, use, renovation, and end of life) of buildings have been assessed. The results showed that the use of a dual-service air-to-water heat pump enables a considerable reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and, on average, the indicators decrease by around 9%. It was concluded that the use of heat pumps makes it possible to reduce the cost of 9 environmental impacts between 8.7% and 13.1% compared to the initial cost, over a period of 80 yr.