Zero net energy building design as the way to increase the energy security of Armenia

Abstract

This article discusses energy saving problems of the buildings and structures in order to improve the energy efficiency of the system for providing comfort conditions. Armenia has not officially established national requirements for zero- energy buildings (ZEB), but some steps have been taken to reduce heating and cooling energy consumption. These measures have mainly been aimed at the design of smart cities and the green architecture promotion. There are many ways to reduce the energy consumption of buildings, the most common of which is the thermal insulation of enclosing structures. Zero - energy buildings (ZEB) using renewable energy sources, produce as much energy as is necessary for a particular building. Taking into consideration this fact, consequently, energy efficiency of buildings remains the main target. For buildings with ZEB, it is not advisable to take into account only the thermal performance of enclosing structures. The article presents a new method of reducing the cooling load of buildings, which allows to cut down on the consumption of primary or secondary energy resources. For the climatic region of Yerevan, with 0.04 m thickness of thermal insulation materials, this method of evaporative cooling of outdoor air, can reduce the cooling load by up to 50%, i.e., greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by up to 40% in stationary mode without considering wind effects and unfavorable meteorological conditions.