The growing demand for energy in the building sector drives the need for change from fossil fuels to environment-friendly power sources which can also mitigate the effect of global warming and climate change. One of the initiatives to knock down the peak load and energy demand in buildings is stepping toward energy-efficient buildings for a sustainable future. This paper aims to review the fundamental aspects for approaching net zero energy consumption buildings (nZECB) keeping into consideration the effect of building physics and challenges faced in the pathway and its feasibility. Also, it addresses various policies and plans that can dramatically change the future of developing nations like India toward a zero-emissions energy system. Considering all the facts, this study suggests inflating our focus beyond direct energy use and opt for hybridized clean energy sources and enhance the constructional parameters for a better, greener, and cleaner future.

The need for hot water in residential buildings requires a significant energy potential. Therefore, an efficient water heating system is important to achieve the goal of saving high-grade energy. The most simple and cheapest solar water heater is a flat plate solar collector (FPSC), which can increase the thermal energy of fluid by absorbing solar radiation. The performance of FPSC is comparatively low due to the dilute nature of solar insolation. Therefore, advancement of FPSC is being undertaken to improve the performance and achieve size reduction. In past, several techniques have been exploited to improve the performance of FPSC, which are presented in the present paper. These techniques include surface modifications, use of nanofluids, solar selective coating, and applications of a mini/macro channel, heat pipe, and vacuum around absorber. Surface modification on the absorber/absorber tube techniques are exploited to transfer the maximum possible solar energy to working fluids by increasing the heat transfer rate. Insertion of wire mesh, coil, and twisted tapes in the flow has great potential to increase the Nusselt number by 460% at the expense of a large pressure drop. Selective coating of Cu0.44 Ti0.44 Mn0.84 helps to absorb up to 97.4% of the incident solar energy, which is more significant. Many nanofluids have been exploited as heat transfer fluids, as they not only increase the performance but also reduce the fluid inventory. So, these techniques play a very prominent role in the performance of FPSC, which are discussed in detail. Summaries of the results are presented and recommendations proposed.

This review presents the existing state‐of‐the‐art practices of indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in naturally ventilated school buildings and is mainly focused on the components of IEQ like thermal comfort, indoor air quality with ventilation, and visual and acoustic comfort. This article also discusses the impacts of COVID‐19 on naturally ventilated school buildings, highlighting the obviousness of dynamic applications that concentrate on reducing COVID‐19 effects in naturally ventilated school buildings. The importance of the concerned issues and factors are discussed in detail for future research direction. This review is a step toward the development of the IEQ standard for naturally ventilated school buildings.

Many countries in the Global South have hot and dry climates with large diurnal temperature variations, which leads to large demand for space cooling—which is likely to increase with climate change. A common approach to dampen the indoor temperature fluctuations and thus reduce cooling energy demand is the use of thermal mass. However, the use of lightweight structures in many cities (e.g., high-rise structures, or for earthquake protection) precludes the use of traditional forms of thermal mass. Therefore, phase change materials (PCMs) are being widely developed as thermal energy storage systems for building applications. However, challenges such as leakage of PCMs in liquid state and their low thermal conductivity, still limit their applications in buildings. In this paper, we review the potential of Form or Shape-Stabilized Phase Change Materials (SSPCMs), which are developed by incorporating the PCM into a supporting matrix to prevent leakage in liquid state whilst improving thermal conductivity. We review different methods of preparation and the resultant thermal properties and chemical stability. We find good evidence in the literature for SSPCMs to reduce PCM leakage in liquid state, dampen indoor temperature fluctuations, and potentially alleviate peak energy demand by shifting peak loads to off-peak periods.

In recent years Asian Nations showed concern over the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of their civil infrastructure. This study presents a contextual investigation of a residential apartment complex in the territory of the southern part of India. The LCA is performed through Building Information Modelling (BIM) software embedded with Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) of materials utilized in construction, transportation of materials and operational energy use throughout the building lifecycle. The results of the study illustrate that cement is the material that most contributes to carbon emissions among the other materials looked at in this study. The operational stage contributed the highest amount of carbon emissions. This study emphasizes variation in the LCA results based on the selection of a combination of definite software-database combinations and manual-database computations used. For this, three LCA databases were adopted (GaBi database and ecoinvent databases through One Click LCA software), and the ICE database was used for manual calculations. The ICE database showed realistic value comparing the GaBi and ecoinvent databases. The findings of this study are valuable for the policymakers and practitioners to accomplish optimization of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions over the building life cycle.