Energy crisis and global warming have become more and more serious with the social development. Since buildings account for a significant proportion of the total energy consumption and carbon emissions, it is very necessary and urgent to decrease building energy consumption. Minimizing the need for energy use in buildings through energy-efficient measures and adopting renewable energy are the basic strategies. Zero energy buildings, which only consume solar energy and other renewable energies, have been considered as one solution and have drawn more and more attention in recent years. Solar thermoelectric cooling technologies can be powered directly by a photovoltaic (PV) and cause no harm to the environment, which fully fulfill the demand of ZEBs. This paper reviews solar thermoelectric cooling technologies and proposes a technical route of solar thermoelectric cooling technologies for use in zero energy buildings. It can be seen that solar thermoelectric cooling systems can minimize the energy demands, increase energy effectiveness and reduce fossil energy consumption in buildings. With the thermoelectric and PV industry's development along with the advent of new materials, the solar thermoelectric cooling technologies for use in zero energy buildings are promising. (c) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.