Parametric analysis of a zero-energy building aiming for a reduction of CO₂ emissions for warm climate

Considering the reduction of fossil fuel resources and the increase of environmental pollutions, everyone is aware of the importance of saving on consumption of energies generated from fossil fuels. Global statistics demonstrates that 30-40% of the energy across different countries worldwide is used in residential buildings. Therefore, one way of efficiency and optimization of energy consumption is to construct buildings that consume the least energy for heating and cooling. Aiming for the analysis of the total amount of annual energy required for heating and cooling, this research was conducted in a combined novel method (simulation and descriptive-analytic) on four samples of a two-story building, simulated in Design Builder Software in the four main directions of north, east, south, and west by using the weather data of warm climate, seeking the optimum orientation and ranking of the said buildings based on CO₂ emissions. The research results show that among the four sample buildings, the east-facing building ranked first with the minimum CO₂ emissions and the west-facing building won second place in the window to wall ratio (WWR) of 40%. Also, the building in a hot climate was considered, since it produced CO₂ annually 12,633 kg. No significant change is observed in the amount of CO₂ emissions in southeast, south, and southwest orientations, although smaller WWR (30% and 20%) is recommended for these three orientations.