The considerable amount of energy consumption associated to the residential sector justifies and supports energy consumption modeling efforts. Among the three approaches to develop energy models, statistical approaches are a good option to avoid the burden associated to engineering approaches...

To meet the goals of the directive 2010/31/EU on the energy performance of buildings, the building sector in Europe now faces a transition towards more energy efficient buildings. Research and development of new energy solutions and technology will be necessary for the transition and the...

There is currently a lack of harmonization in the building energy efficiency requirements that are mandated by different countries. Energy efficiency is defined by the energy yield of the facilities and by the envelope energy losses. These energy losses are mainly conditioned by the thermal...

During the past 5 years, the Chinese government has organized and implemented a large-scale energy-efficiency retrofit program for existing residential buildings in China׳s northern heating region. However, many obstacles, especially lack of successful financing arrangements, have limited the...

The integration of different energy sources to cover with the maximum efficiency the building energy demand is one of the principles for achieving the target of the nearly net Zero Energy Buildings (nNZEBs), as defined by the EPBD recast (2010/31/EU). Following this principle, there has been a...

Rooftop photovoltaic (PV) power generation stands as a promising technology for the transition towards a low-carbon power and buildings sector. However, in the past deployment has been strongly dependent on policy support. With the recent rapid decrease in module costs, rooftop PV is exhibiting...

New heat conversion technologies need to be developed and improved to take advantage of the necessary increase in the supply of renewable energy. The Organic Rankine Cycle is well suited for these applications, mainly because of its ability to recover low-grade heat and the possibility to be...

Biomass continues to attract much interest as a renewable, low-CO2, and increasingly cost competitive alternative to traditional fossil fuels for heat and/or electric power generation. At the same time, deregulation of electricity markets offer new opportunities for small-scale decentralized...

With electricity consumption increasing within the United States, new paradigms of delivering electricity are required in order to meet demand. One promising option is the increased use of distributed power generation. Already a growing percentage of electricity generation, distributed...

Fuel cells produce heat when generating electricity, thus they are of particular interest for combined heat and power (CHP) and combined cooling heat and power (CCHP) applications, also known as tri-generation systems. CHP and tri-generation systems offer high energy conversion efficiency and...