Getting to Zero: The Frontier of Low-Energy Buildings

Zero-energy has become a buzzword of the green building movement, used in advertising slogans, conference presentations, and technical papers. Despite the excitement over the phrase, however, we lack a common understanding of just what zero-energy means. And despite proclaimed achievability, few if any buildings can demonstrate that they in fact use zero-energy as defined by most practitioners. In this article, we explore the concept of zero-energy: what it means, why it matters, and, most important, how to get there.