This paper is the first of two that examine the influence of building form, including courtyards, on the energy performance of medium-sized institutional solar net zero energy buildings incorporating building-integrated photovoltaic/thermal (BIPV/T) roof systems. The inclusion of BIPV/T at the early design stage along with passive design techniques extends to energy flexibility considerations with a smart grid. A two storey 3 000 m2 medium-sized archetype building was considered. Through simulations, different building plan shapes and BIPV/T roof tilt angles supported by a range of related building enclosure variables such as insulation level and window characteristics were analyzed and compared. The design configurations used BIPV/T heat recovery for winter ventilation air preheating in the Montreal region.In this first paper, the methodology is presented. Then, using annual net energy use intensity as the target, a global sensitivity analysis was performed to rank and quantify the most sensitive design variables at different BIPV/T roof slopes. Out of the nine input variables analyzed, the most influential by rank were the orientation, the window to wall ratio for the south and north façades, and the plan shape, for roof tilt angles of 35°, 40°, and 45°. For a roof tilt angle of 30°, the window to wall ratio of the south façade was the most influential, switching rank with the orientation. Although not an input variable to the sensitivity analysis, this indicates as well the influence of the BIPV/T roof tilt angle. Also, there was a significant interaction effect between the plan shape and orientation, highlighting the utility of analyzing interaction effects at the early design stage and the importance of these two factors in solar-enhanced buildings. At the other end of the spectrum, the window type, the wall and roof insulation level, and the window to wall ratios for the east and west facades were the least significant – at least approximately one order of magnitude less sensitive than the first ranked input.In the second paper, the methodology is applied in a case study for early stage design in which relative comparisons are made considering building form, net-zero energy, and extended to the grid considering load matching and energy flexibility.