NZEB. Opti-Sim in Sustainability

The project aims to develop a tool that will allow us to calculate the energy consumption of a building before its construction.

We have developed an energy simulator that will show how much energy will the building consume after it has been built. The simulator takes into account several aspects of its construction. These aspects include the kind of material that will be used, how wide the walls are going to be or its geographic location and orientation.

By making use of this tool, some improvements in the characteristics of the building’s construction can be simulated in order to find the solution with the least environmental impact, all with a lesser economic cost. By running tests simulating different characteristics we aim to be able to achieve construction of Net Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB), this is, buildings whose yearly net energy consumption is close to zero.

However, apart from the energy consumption of the building once it has been erected, the simulator will also analyze the environmental effects of construction and demolition for each possible solution by using a large database. For example, after selecting certain materials for construction that will ensure a low energy consuming building, by using our tool we can determine whether these materials are indeed ecologic or not (i.e. whether they will be highly recyclable after demolition or whether they can be obtained using non-aggressive and non-polluting methods). Thus, making us able to control the environmental impact of a building at every single stage of its life.