A zero energy house for the hot and humid climate of UAE is designed. It is focused on improve the building envelope through insulation materials, low density concrete, reflective coatings and low SHGC windows. The design is done by computer simulations using TRNSYS and POLYSUN software. Passive technologies are able to reduce the cooling load to 80%, which represents a 55% reduction of the total electricity consumption in the original building. Adding active technologies such as high efficient air conditioning chiller and solar water heater, total electricity consumption of the house is reduced to 70%. The remaining cooling load is covered by 6.5 kW PV system which is placed on the available roof area.