Roadmap for Net Zero Energy Schools in Chile

During the last ten years, there has been an increasing development of the Net Zero Energy Building in industrial countries. For example, the European Union mandates that by 2020 all new public buildings must comply with the European Directive for nearly Zero Energy Buildings. In the context, of knowledge transfer and investigation of the implementation potential of high-performance building in Chile, this paper presents the findings of a comparative study that was done considering the Belgian regulation landscape. The study focuses on school buildings and the challenge of sustainable building design, construction and operation. The aim of this research is to present a roadmap to Chilean policy makers and designers to progressively understand and implement the Net Zero Energy Schools concept in all new constructions. The research methodology followed a mixed approach combing a literature review of the performance standards, case study comparison, and focus group discussions with Belgian and Chilean experts. The results of the comparative analysis indicate the need to set out a low-tech concept for Net Zero Energy Schools. The focus group discussions resulted in the validation of a novel roadmap and the identification of the most important performance aspects to consider for its implementation. Finally, the paper provides valuable guidelines and technical recommendations besides a roadmap that can be used for strategical planning to implement Net Zero Energy Schools in Chile.