Energy performance, comfort, and lessons learned from an institutional building designed for net zero energy

This paper examines the early performance ofthe Varennes Library, a building designed for net-zero annual energy balance in Varennes, near Montreal, Canada. It produces electricity from a 110.5 kWp building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) system where heat is also recovered from a section of the array and used to preheat the outdoor air intake. The building's many architectural and mechanicalfeatures were integrally designed to achieve the net …