Approaching the single-family building to the zero residential building status by implementing photovoltaic panels and external wall-roof pergolas for different locations in the Western Serbia region

With the legislative strengthening of the Energy Efficiency Directive in October 2023, Europe established a new green energy policy that mandates reducing total final energy consumption to 763 Mtoe by 2030. Given that the residential building sector currently accounts for approximately 25 % of this consumption, it is clear that promoting energy-efficient residential buildings will be significantly intensified in the near future.

Following current trends, this paper critically investigates the energy, ecological and economic aspects of active (photovoltaic panels) and passive (external wall-roof pergolas) solar systems to approach the single-family building to the zero residential building status in the Western Serbia region for the following two main reasons: (1) Serbia (the same applies to the Balkan Peninsula) represents critical link in the European energy transformations chain and (2) solar potential for a moderate continental climate is about 40% higher than the European average.

All three residential building models (building without solar systems – scenario S1, building with photovoltaic panels – scenario S2 and building with photovoltaic panels and external wall-roof pergolas – scenario S3) were created in the Google SketchUp software following the Serbian Rulebook on Energy Efficiency for New Buildings. All thermo-technical systems (home appliances, internal lighting, water heating, space heating – central heating system with pellet boiler and radiators, space cooling – individual air-conditioner units, photovoltaic panels and pergolas) and people occupancy are simulated using the EnergyPlus software.

Based on the conducted simulations and obtained results (for 10 different locations in the adopted region) the following main conclusions can be drawn: (1) the Western Serbia region is suitable for green (sustainable) architecture and energy-efficient residential buildings, (2) depending on the location parameters, pergolas can reduce the area of photovoltaic panels by 0.92–5.07 m² without endangering the zero-energy residential building status, (3) thermo-technical systems based on renewable energy sources for space heating and cooling positively contribute to the zero-emission residential building status (carbon footprint), but not always zero-cost residential building status and (4) zero residential building concept is not possible without responsible occupancy behavior.