LAUSR

As an important building type to diminish energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in the construction industry, nearly zero energy building (nZEB) has attracted much attention from many scholars, with volumes of research findings published. However, quantitative and systematic reviews on those findings are rarely conducted by researchers. Therefore, a visualized presentation regarding the advancement of nZEB research was made in this study by applying the scientometric method of co-citation analysis to 704 publications retrieved from the Web of Science database from 2006 to 2018. Here, the key conclusions drawn after the research are as follows: (1) Italy, the USA and Spain are the top three nations by the number of nZEB publications; (2) Energy and Buildings, Applied Energy and Energy are the journals with the highest number of published nZEB articles; (3) Politecnico di Milano, Aalto University and Politecnico di Torino are the most influential core organizations in the field of nZEB; (4) Professor Kurnitski J, Professor Corgnati SP and Professor D’Agostino D are the leading nZEB experts; (5) “cost optimal”, “life cycle assessment”, “technical system”, “design” and “indoor environment quality” are the major research directions in the field of nZEB; (6) A multi-stage optimization method for cost-optimal and nearly zero-energy building solutions in line with the EPBD 2010, co-authored by Hamdy M, is the most cited nZEB reference; (7) “residential building”, “building energy saving technology”, “simulation method” and “thermal comfort”, etc. are the hot topics in nZEB research at present and in the future. This research is designed to provide valuable information for scholars interested in the field of nZEB.