Energy performance evaluation of a nearly Zero Energy Building and the reasons for the performance gap between expected and actual building operation

As energy standards focus on reducing energy use in new buildings, attention is drawn to the gap between the expected and actual building operation and energy performance. This performance gap can be associated with the building construction, its systems, its unbalanced operation, the assumptions on occupancy profiles during the design phase, or the users’ interaction with the systems’ operation and control. This work focuses on a nearly zero-energy (nZEB) single-family house located in central Denmark. The analysis of indoor environment and energy use is based on year-long data monitoring. The reasons for the deviation between the expected and actual energy use are suggested. The indoor environmental quality is analyzed to verify the compliance with the standards. The European recommendation for the yearly primary energy use of new single-family houses is 50 – 65 kWh/m2. For the current case, the simulation tool Be18 gives a result of 30.8 kWh/m2 for the design phase. However, the actual energy use is measured to be 58.2 kWh/m2. The sensibility of nZEBs to such imbalances can lead to houses that do not function as intended. It is thus crucial to investigate further the causes of these disparities in order to bridge the gap between expected and final energy use in dwellings.