The virtual energy storage system (VESS) represents a novel technology that integrates building envelope performance with heating and cooling equipment. Zero-emission buildings (ZEB) exhibit optimal envelope performance and employ renewable energy generation, battery energy storage system (BESS) and controllable loads can not only achieve their own zero-emission status, but also provide flexible resources to the grid for revenue generation by combining BESS and VESS. A three-period optimal operation strategy for ZEBs that takes into account the VESS proposed. This strategy divides the scheduling periods into three parts: weekly, daily and hourly. In the weekly period, the SOC of the BESS and VESS at the beginning and end of each day are determined based on the activity list provided by the users with the objective of minimising the weekly operating cost. In the daily period, the controllable loads (washing machine, dryer), BESS and VESS are optimised with the objective of minimising the daily deviation of the BESS, taking into account the daily needs of the occupants. In the hourly period, BESS, VESS and household appliance status are solved for each scheduling hour on a rolling basis, combined with a model predictive control approach. The effectiveness of the proposed method and VESS is verified through comparative simulations.