Active Building as an Energy System: Concept, Challenges, and Outlook

Over the last decades, environmental concerns and the global tendency to reduce the use of fossil fuels and replacing them with renewable energy sources (RESs) to face the increasing rate of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have increased. Buildings consume a significant amount of energy and therefore, they are responsible for a noticeable part of the total GHG emission. Thus, when we talk about decarbonization of the energy systems, buildings are an important sector of the energy system that needs to be considered. Using RESs, smart technologies, and information and communication technologies along with the improvement in energy efficiency, are a number of endeavors to increase the role of building on the way toward decarbonization. In the new environment, the buildings are not passive players of the energy systems and they are able to take an active role and participate in the energy-efficient operation. While they are able to manage their resources and serve the local energy requirements of the residents in the best possible manner, they can participate in the energy and balancing markets and support the network operators as a service provider. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of active buildings’ concept, challenges and outlook to pave the way for the researchers from academia and industry who want to start working in this area.