Skip to main content

DelftX: Zero-Energy Design: an approach to make your building sustainable

Learn how to get to a net zero energy use of an existing building.

7 weeks
4–6 hours per week
Self-paced
Progress at your own speed
Free
Optional upgrade available

There is one session available:

24,106 already enrolled! After a course session ends, it will be archivedOpens in a new tab.
Starts Mar 28
Ends Sep 17

About this course

Skip About this course

Reduction of energy consumption of buildings is an important step in the move towards a sustainable economy. How can buildings be made net zero energy, in different climates?

This course introduces you to zero energy design. It will teach you a stepped approach to design a zero energy climate concept for existing buildings: homes, schools, offices, shops etc. It will demonstrate how an integrated approach, which takes into account both passive measures (such as thermal insulation and sun shading) and active measures (such as heat pumps and photovoltaic panels), can deliver the best results.

It will do so by providing you with an overview of possible measures, and through reviewing several case studies of zero energy buildings in the Netherlands, with lessons for other climates as well. Thus, you will learn which measures are most suitable for individual buildings under local climate conditions.

This course is for anyone interested in making buildings more energy efficient, who already possess basic technical knowledge.

Awards

edX Prize 2020

At a glance

  • Institution: DelftX
  • Subject: Architecture
  • Level: Intermediate
  • Prerequisites:

    Bachelor Technical Study 1st year

  • Language: English
  • Video Transcript: English
  • Associated skills:Thermal Insulation, Water Pumps, Energy Consumption

What you'll learn

Skip What you'll learn
  • Apply a stepped approach to find energy reducing measures
  • Analyse the energy use of a building
  • Analyse the local climate and select appropriate measures
  • Develop an integrated net-zero-energy concept for the building

Week 1 Energy in the built environment
Introduction to Zero Energy Design
Analyse the energy consumption of a selected building

Week 2 REDUCE: Passive measures
Analyse the local climate and choose passive measures to reduce the energy demand, like thermal insulation and sun shading.

Week 3 REDUCE: Active measures
Overview of active measures to reduce the energy demand, like demand-controlled heating and ventilation.

Week 4 REUSE
Overview of the opportunities to reuse energy flows in buildings, like heat recovery from ventilation air and warm waste water

Week 5 PRODUCE
Overview of the opportunities to produce heat and electricity in the building, like PV-systems, ground source heat pumps.

Week 6 INTEGRATE
Apply all the measures from the previous weeks in an integrated net zero energy concept for the selected building

Week 7 Wrap up

More about this course

Skip More about this course
LICENSE

The course materials of this course are Copyright Delft University of Technology and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) 4.0 International License.

Interested in this course for your business or team?

Train your employees in the most in-demand topics, with edX For Business.