Towards achieving net-zero energy communities: Investigation of design strategies and seasonal solar collection and storage net-zero

This paper explores a solar mixed-use community and its potential towards achieving net-zero energy status. This mixed-use community combines residential and commercial/institutional buildings. Energy performance of this neighbourhood is estimated in terms of energy consumption and generation potential by means of building integrated PV systems. A solar thermal collector system combined with a borehole thermal energy storage (BTES) is designed to investigate the impact on the overall performance of the neighbourhood. The design of solar thermal collectors and the sizing of short-term thermal energy storage is based on the analysis of the thermal loads for heating and domestic hot water in each district of the community. The results of the performance of the thermal collectors and BTES align with existing communities, which employ similar technologies. The results indicate that implementing energy efficiency measures together with PV systems, allows the neighbourhood to generate around 70% of its total energy consumption. The implementation of thermal collectors and seasonal storage, in this high-energy performance neighbourhood, leads to a net positive energy status.