ABSTRACT
Attempts to improve the sustainability of new dwellings often focus strongly on innovative active energy saving techniques. Meanwhile, passive, but often more cost effective measures are neglected. The objective of the research is to develop extremely low energy dwellings that combine the most effective passive and active measures, through life cycle optimization of energy savings, environmental impact and costs. Energy simulations are executed with TRNSYS and the ecological impact is evaluated through a life cycle inventory of the whole building. The multi-objective optimization problem is tackled by combining genetic algorithms and the Pareto-concept. The paper will report mainly on the implementation of the optimization methodology and on the first results of the research project.
