Design of low-emission and energy-efficient residential buildings using a multi-objective optimization algorithm

The improvement of energy efficiency and environmental performance of buildings is considered a major priority worldwide. New building regulations have an explicit orientation toward low-emission and energy-efficient designs. However, the optimal design of residential buildings should consider multiple, and usually competitive, objectives such as energy consumption optimization, financial costs reduction and decrease of environmental impacts. This makes it a challenging multi-objective optimization problem. The aim of this work is to develop a novel method to tackle the problem. A multi-objective optimization model based on harmony search algorithm (HS) is presented. This model is developed to minimize the life cycle cost (LCC) and carbon dioxide equivalent (CO(2)-eq) emissions of the buildings. Several building envelope parameters are taken as the design variables. To demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach the performance of the model is tested on a typical single-family house. For the case of such a house, the model proves to be efficient, and a set of optimal combinations (Pareto optimal solutions) is obtained. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.