Zero-Energy Design: From Energy Efficiency to Energy-Neutral Buildings
AERIK participated in the Zero-Energy Design: Make Existing and New Buildings Energy-Neutral webinar organized by TU Delft, focusing on approaches for achieving energy neutrality in the built environment. The online webinar was presented by Prof. Andy van den Dobbelsteen, Professor of Climate Design & Sustainability at TU Delft.
The webinar addressed four main themes:
The urgency of becoming energy neutral in the built environment
The methodology behind zero-energy design
The content and structure of the upcoming Zero-Energy Design course
Examples of zero-energy buildings and their approaches
The session introduced the broader framework of Zero-Energy Design, which considers building energy performance through an integrated design approach rather than focusing on a single technology or intervention. TU Delft's related course develops this approach through the analysis of energy use and local climate, followed by measures to reduce, reuse and produce energy, before integrating these strategies into a net-zero-energy building concept.
About the Webinar
AERIK attended the online webinar “Zero-Energy Design: Make Existing and New Buildings Energy-Neutral”, organized by Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and presented by Prof. Andy van den Dobbelsteen, Professor of Climate Design & Sustainability. The webinar introduced the zero-energy design approach, the methodology of the associated course, its upcoming content, and examples of zero-energy buildings.
Key Takeaways
01 — Energy neutrality requires a systems approach
One of the central ideas behind TU Delft's Zero-Energy Design methodology is that achieving an energy-neutral building requires looking at the building as an integrated energy system rather than addressing individual technologies in isolation.
The TU Delft course methodology follows a stepped approach of Research → Reduce → Re-use → Produce → Integrate. This begins with understanding the building and its local climate, followed by reducing energy demand, identifying opportunities to reuse energy flows, producing energy, and integrating the measures into an overall zero-energy concept.
02 — Local climate and building conditions matter
The methodology begins with research and analysis of the local climate and the building's energy use. Rather than applying the same solution to every building, the approach considers which measures are appropriate for the specific climate and building conditions.
This is particularly relevant to engineering-based building design, where environmental conditions can directly influence building-envelope performance, energy demand and technology selection.
03 — Reduce demand before focusing on production
The course framework places energy reduction before energy production. Passive measures such as insulation and solar shading, together with active measures such as demand-controlled heating and ventilation, are considered as part of the process of reducing energy demand.
This establishes an important principle: energy generation should be considered as part of a broader performance strategy, rather than as a substitute for efficient building design.
04 — Energy flows can also be reused
The methodology extends beyond reducing consumption by examining opportunities to reuse energy flows within buildings, including heat recovery from ventilation air and warm wastewater.
This expands the concept of building energy performance from simply how much energy a building consumes to how energy moves through the building and where otherwise-unused energy can be recovered.
05 — Buildings can become energy-producing systems
The “Produce” stage considers opportunities for producing heat and electricity at the building level, including technologies such as photovoltaic systems and ground-source heat pumps.
This is the point where the discussion becomes particularly relevant to AERIK's research direction.
AERIK Perspective
At AERIK, we see the building envelope as an important part of this broader energy-system perspective.
A façade is traditionally understood primarily as a boundary between indoor and outdoor environments, responsible for functions such as protection, daylight, thermal performance and environmental control. However, the same envelope is continuously exposed to environmental forces and physical phenomena, including solar radiation, temperature differences, wind and vibration.
This raises another engineering question: can some of these environmental interactions be transformed into useful energy?
AERIK's research into energy-generating building skins investigates this question through piezoelectric wind-energy harvesting, exploring how wind-induced façade motion and vibration can be converted into electrical energy.
In this context, energy generation is not considered independently from building performance. It forms part of a broader approach in which the building envelope can contribute to energy efficiency, environmental responsiveness and distributed energy generation.
From Zero-Energy to Energy-Generating Buildings
Zero-energy design challenges us to reconsider how buildings interact with energy.
Reducing demand, reusing available energy and producing renewable energy are complementary strategies. The next step is to investigate whether additional environmental interactions that are normally treated only as loads or boundary conditions can also become useful energy resources.
For AERIK, this question forms part of ongoing research into energy-generating building skins, where façade engineering, environmental analysis, computational modelling and energy-harvesting technologies are brought together.
The objective is not simply to add another energy technology to a building, but to explore how the building envelope itself can become an active component of the building's energy system.
Event: Zero-Energy Design: Make Existing and New Buildings Energy-Neutral
Institution: Delft University of Technology (TU Delft)
Speaker: Prof. Andy van den Dobbelsteen
Format: Online Webinar
Date: September–October 2026
Category: Events / Building Energy / Zero-Energy Design
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