In the Canadian north, the cost of space heating is very high due to the harsh weather, its remoteness, lack of transportation, and dependency on the high cost of fossil fuel imported from the South. Since the North has an abundance of solar energy, significant energy savings with some added construction cost in houses could be achieved by applying high-performance building envelopes and solar design strategies. The objective of this paper is to investigate the potential of both passive and active solar design strategies in improving the energy efficiency of northern housing. Firstly, a reference house representing a typical single-family home in the North is modeled using EnergyPlus, and the key passive design parameters are optimized to minimize life-cycle cost. Then, the air-based building integrated photovoltaic/thermal (BIPV/T) system is applied to the optimized house and integrated with HVAC systems. It is found that optimal passive solar design can reduce the heating energy demand by 42% with an incremental cost of 8% for Yellowknife and by 27% without incurring an incremental cost for Kuujjuaq. Integrating BIPV/T with HVAC systems can reduce the defrost time of heat recovery ventilator (HRV), extend the working hours and improve the COP of air source heat pump (ASHP). The reduction in the total energy consumption is in the range of 1.4%-3.0% by integrating HRV and 0.3%-0.6% by integrating ASHP due to the mis-match of solar availability and heating energy demand. To maximize the utilization of solar energy available, the optimal use of thermal energy recovered from BIPV/T system in northern housing requires further investigation.

Curtain walls are believed to be "energy sinks" because of their relatively low thermal performance; however, the integration of energy generating technologies such as photovoltaic (PV) panels may enable converting these systems to "energy positive" curtain walls. A methodology using the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) approach is developed and implemented to identify configurations of energy positive curtain walls by accounting for the complex interacting effect of facade design parameters. The "energy positive" curtain wall in this paper is defined as the energy generated by the curtain wall facade on an annual basis exceeds the energy consumption of a perimeter zone office enclosed by this curtain wall facade. Ten design parameters are studied, including glazing U-value, solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC), and visible transmittance (T_v); U-value of the spandrel panel; U-value of the mullion; window wall ratio (WWR); infiltration rate; depth and inclination of overhang; and efficiency of PV modules. The significance of individual design parameters on the energy performance is ranked for four cardinal orientations based on the total sensitivity index. The WWR, U-glazing, and infiltration rate are the three most significant parameters influencing the total annual energy consumption of the office unit simulated, while the WWR, PV efficiency, and U-glazing are the most significant design parameters for achieving energy positive curtain walls. The methodology presented in this paper helps facilitate the design process to resolve the issues with conflicting effects of design parameters.