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area in China were simulated and compared by Li et al. (2015). The findings indicated that theoverall energy savings were more than 55%, among which the air conditioning system played asignificant role in saving energy. Ferrari and Beccali (2017) were able to reduce the primaryenergy demand and CO2 emissions by up to 40% by adopting accessible technological solutionsin a building at the Polytechnic School of the University of Milan, Italy. The use of semitransparent photovoltaics (STPV), which transmits visible light yet, at the same time, produceselectricity has most likely the highest potential to achieve the nZEB goal. Refat and Sajjad (2020)showed that for 50% visible transmittance, STPV on clear glass saves about 50% and 30% ofthe energy demand in tropical and hot desert regions, respectively, and around 20%%u201325% inScandinavian and cold continental regions. Moreover, when combined with low-emissivity glass,the net saving reaches as high as 90% in tropical regions, 60% in hot desert regions and 45%%u201370% in the rest of the regions. Renewable energy systems (RES) in buildings are designed tooperate over their lifetime. Sobhani et al. (2020) stated that without considering the potentialfuture changes in influential parameters such as climate and energy price data may lead toinappropriate solutions for long-term operation. Findings showed a decrease in heating andelectricity demand by 14.6% and 2.29% and an increase in cooling demand by 19.9% after20 years. The consideration of uncertainties in the design would further increase the computingcost significantly. It may also lead to low energy efficiency and even failure of achieving zero/lowenergy goal in operation, as each design option needs to be evaluated under a large number ofuncertain scenarios. Li and Wang (2020)reviewed a coordinated robust optimal design method toefficiently identify the global optimal design solutions for the entire zero/low energy buildingsunder uncertainties. Their studies showed that taking into account uncertainties in designoptimizations of building envelope and energy systems would save more than 90% ofcomputational time. Also, the durability of materials and technologies is an important aspect thatwarrants further analysis to assess the proper efficiencies and the expected lifetime of a ZEB.Past studies have shown that ZEB performance in the building life cycle has decreased due to theinstability of building materials (Danza et al., 2018). Mahdavi Adeli et al. (2020) conducted a studyon an office building in the hot and dry climate of Iran with the aim of thermal comfort as well asoptimizing energy consumption. Their findings showed that using photovoltaic panels alone isnot able to create a net-zero energy building. They found that using wind turbines for electricitygeneration in cold seasons would be an appropriate substitute for the reduction in the electricitygenerated by photovoltaic panels.Table 1 shows the review of previous studies in the field of ZEBs. These studies havebeen derived from prestigious scientific bases such as ScienceDirect, Taylor and Francis,Wiley, ASCE, Springer and Emerald. The investigation of ZEB, feasibility studies andresearch on its components have been conducted in studies by Albadry et al. (2017) Al-Saadiand Shaaban (2019), Al-Saeed et al. (2020), Cellura et al. (2015), Charisi (2017), Danza et al.(2018), Ferrari and Beccali (2017), Fonseca et al. (2018), Heravi and Qaemi (2014), Li andWang (2020), Li et al. (2015), Liu et al. (2019), Lizana et al. (2017), Mahdavi Adeli et al. (2020),Salem et al. (2019), Sudhakar et al. (2019), Walter Costa et al. (2020) and Zhou et al. (2016).Based on Table 1, it can be concluded that no study has been performed worldwideregarding the examination, feasibility and simulation of ZEB in cold and semi-arid climatesusing the Meteonorm, PVsyst, Ecotect Analysis and DesignBuilder software packages. Thestudy of the feasibility of using solar panels system in the cold and semi-arid climate ofIran and achieving a building with zero energy by considering the principles of passivedesign including optimal selection of direction, Trombe wall, shade and proper insulationhas been the main focus of this research. For this purpose, a case study building has beenadopted in the design phase to select the best case for construction and computer simulationin the cold and semi-arid region of Mashhad using Ecotect and DesignBuilder software,IJESM