Characterization of Building Thermal Energy Consumption at the Urban Scale

The ongoing urban transition toward decarbonized energy systems has raised the attention on local energy planning practices. Besides the multiple actors involved in the planning process, the complexity of the urban energy systems requires the elaboration of heterogeneous data. In such contest, the paper introduces and compares two GIS-based ethodologies for supporting the spatial characterization of the local residential built environment in terms of building distribution and space heating energy consumption. Starting from the assessment of residential consumption, a third method for the characterization of non-residential building thermal energy consumption is proposed. From a bottom-up perspective, in both residential models all the buildings are geo-referenced and clustered according to their thermo-physical characteristics. From a top-down perspective, energy balance data are used to calibrate the bottom-up results and to match the total building loads. The procedure, tested on the city of Turin as case study, allows assessing the energy use of buildings and to create urban energy maps. The energy spatial characterization of a territory is the basis for performing short and long-term scenarios analysis. Results of this method can be useful to: i. decision maker to understand the current state of the territorial energy consumption to identify critical energy intense areas; ii. citizens for visualising their energy consumption and iii. researchers for setting up the basis of further urban analysis

A methodological framework for the economic assessment of ict-tools for occupants’ engagement

The concept of smartness in building dates to the 1970s, but, in face of the breakthrough technological developments, a new notion of smart building is currently recognized. We talk about ambient intelligence, referring to a building which is responsive to the needs of the occupants and of the energy system. An ambient-intelligent building is human-centric; new services and interfaces are provided to the buildings occupants to learn and set their preferences, with a positive impact on their comfort level and satisfaction with the indoor environmental quality. ICT and IoT are part of the enabling technologies to exploit the potentials of smart buildings, by unlocking the capability of buildings to interact with the system they belong to. To bolster the diffusion of new technologies, methodologies to get quantitative results proving their effectiveness should be provided. In this paper the application of a well-established economic evaluation tool, the so-called Cost-Benefit Analysis, to the case of the deployment of new ICT-tools for occupants’ engagement is presented. The methodology is adopted within the H2020 Mobistyle project, where two levels of the evaluation are identified: the whole project level and the single demo case one. The purpose of the methodology is to assess the effectiveness of the adoption of the ICT-tools in producing economic value in terms of benefits for the occupants and the society. Some preliminary results of its application to the Italian case study are also presented, showing a positive socio-economic balance since the beginning of the deployment

Occupant behaviour lifestyles and effects on building energy use: Investigation on high and low performing building features

Occupant behaviour is known to be one of the key sources of uncertainty in the prediction of building energy use. Extended literature reviews linked the large performance gaps between residential buildings with same properties and similar climate conditions to the way occupants interact with the building envelope and systems. Furthermore, in the last decades, more stringent energy codes have led to energy efficient design strategies with the aim of reaching the nearly-zero energy target. The success of these strategies is now heavily dependent on how the occupants interact with the building, or rather, on the energy-related lifestyles they assume. In line with this, the present study employs building simulations to demonstrate the potential impact of different occupant behaviour lifestyles on the energy use of a Mediterranean (i) residential nearly-zero energy building (nZEB) under-construction and a (ii) Reference Building (RB) whose envelope-driven loads dominate the consumption profile

insights into the effects of occupant behaviour lifestyles and building automation on building energy use

Abstract In order to optimize building energy consumption, Member States will have to establish minimum efficiency requirements for systems, and promote the introduction of active control system in new constructions or major renovations. Energy saving, plant efficiency and environmental sustainability are also factors delineating smart buildings. Interestingly, occupant behaviour is known to be one of the key sources of uncertainty in the prediction of building energy use. The success of automation strategies is recognized to be dependent on how the occupants interact with the building. The present research describes the effect of different building occupants' lifestyles and building automation on a high performing building

Exploitation of dynamic simulation to investigate the effectiveness of the Smart Readiness Indicator: application to the Energy Center building of Turin

To achieve the energy and emissions reduction goals for the building sector, actions are needed to improve energy efficiency and occupants’ wellbeing. To increase the uptake of smart technologies and the awareness upon their benefits, in line with the smart building revolution that is starting, the EPBD recast introduced the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI) as a tool to evaluate the capability of buildings to easily adapt to both energy systems and occupants’ needs. However, there is a growing interest in studying the SRI features in terms of performance assessment, and, thus, dynamic simulation models can be exploited to better analyze its points of strength and weakness. The Energy Center building of Turin was chosen as case study. By means of EnergyPlus modeling, the current situation was simulated, as well as different scenarios of energy management and control, evaluating to what extent these actions can influence the overall SRI assessment. The analysis allowed to deepen and comment on the effectiveness of the SRI of being a real tool of building behavior assessment, able to link the indicator itself with the energy needs of the building and to understand if and how the indicator is sensible to energy needs variations

Application of Building Typologies for Modelling the Energy Balance of the Residential Building Stock

Building typologies can serve as a basis for analysing the national housing sector. During the TABULA project which was introducing or further developing building typologies in thirteen EU countries, six of the European partners have carried out model calculations which aim at imaging the energy consumption and estimating the energy saving potentials of their national residential building stocks (IWU / Germany, NOA / Greece, POLITO / Italy, VITO / Belgium, STU-K / Czech Republic, SBi / Denmark). The results show that the model calculations can provide plausible projections of the energy consumption of the national residential buildings stock. The fit of model calculations and national energy statistics is satisfactory, deviations can often be explained and corrected by adapting standard boundary conditions of the applied calculation models to more realistic values. In general, the analysis shows that building typologies can be a helpful tool for modelling the energy consumption of national building stocks and for carrying out scenario analysis beyond the TABULA project. The consideration of a set of representative buildings makes it possible to have a detailed view on various packages of measures for the complete buildings stock or for its sub-categories. The effects of different insulation measures at the respective construction elements as well as different heat supply measures including renewable energies can be considered in detail. The quality of future model calculations will depend very much on the availability of statistical data. For reliable scenario analysis information is necessary about the current state of the building stock (How many buildings and heating systems have been refurbished until now?) and about the current trends (How many buildings and heating systems are being refurbished every year?). The availability and regular update of the relevant statistical data will be an important basis for the development and evaluation of national climate protection strategies in the building secto

Review of health and well-being aspects in Green Certification Protocols

Over the past decades, the world-leading Green Certification Protocols have paid increasing attention to health-related aspects of buildings. However, the way and the extent to which green certifications currently account for these aspects vary largely. This paper aims to review and compare four certification protocols, namely LEED v4, BREEAM 2018, WELL v2, and MINERGIE-ECO v1.4, and to provide insights on how aspects related to occupants’ health and well-being and their influencing factors are accounted for and assessed. To that scope, indicators used to assess the users' health and well-being are extracted from each certification and compared. Indicators traditionally used to evaluate IEQ in buildings (thermal, indoor air quality, visual and acoustic) based on international or national standards were found in all certifications. However, the analysis highlights that their assessment and verification stage (e.g., pre- vs. post- occupancy) significantly differs from one label to another. More “advanced” indicators, which are related to mind, promotion of physical activities, and community engagement, have come to light. While a comprehensive approach to the evaluation of well-being might include a combination of objective (e.g., measurement-based evaluations) and subjective components (e.g., people’s subjective evaluation), the review highlighted that only in one protocol (i.e., WELL), direct feedback from occupants is kept in the loop for further optimization of the building management during operation. Otherwise, indicators are mainly verified through quantitative measurements, reports, or implemented policies

Sindbad: A new operational service for a safer leisure and boating navigation

The SINDBAD- Leisure and Boating Safety Navigation - project goal is the development of an advanced operational service to support navigation in a specific area. The first prototype covers the Ligurian Sea (a very busy touristic area in the North Mediterranean Sea) It develops an ICT Service Infrastructure to provide innovative intelligent automation functions and to develop customized services, accessible by your mobile device, for conducting a boat and avoiding any kind of risk ensuring the best degree of comfort

The energy center initiative at politecnico di torino: practical experiences on energy efficiency measures in the municipality of torino

Urban districts should evolve towards a more sustainable infrastructure and greener energy carriers. The utmost challenge is the smart integration and control, within the existing infrastructure, of new information and energy technologies (such as sensors, appliances, electric and thermal power and storage devices) that are able to provide multi-services based on multi-actors and multi and interchangeable energy carriers. In recent years, the Municipality of Torino represents an experimental scenario, in which practical experiences in the below-areas have taken place through a number of projects: 1. energy efficiency in building; 2. smart energy grids management and smart metering; 3. biowaste-to-energy: mixed urban/industrial waste management with enhanced energy recovery from biogas. This work provides an overview and update on the most interesting initiatives of smart energy management in the urban context of Torino, with an analysis and quantification of the advantages gained in terms of energy and environmental efficiency

Application of Building Typologies for Modelling the Energy Balance of the Residential Building Stock.

Building typologies can serve as a basis for analysing the national housing sector. During the TABULA project which was introducing or further developing building typologies in thirteen EU countries, six of the European partners have carried out model calculations which aim at imaging the energy consumption and estimating the energy saving potentials of their national residential building stocks (IWU / Germany, NOA / Greece, POLITO / Italy, VITO / Belgium, STU-K / Czech Republic, SBi / Denmark). The results show that the model calculations can provide plausible projections of the energy consumption of the national residential buildings stock. The fit of model calculations and national energy statistics is satisfactory, deviations can often be explained and corrected by adapting standard boundary conditions of the applied calculation models to more realistic values. In general, the analysis shows that building typologies can be a helpful tool for modelling the energy consumption of national building stocks and for carrying out scenario analysis beyond the TABULA project. The consideration of a set of representative buildings makes it possible to have a detailed view on various packages of measures for the complete buildings stock or for its sub-categories. The effects of different insulation measures at the respective construction elements as well as different heat supply measures including renewable energies can be considered in detail. The quality of future model calculations will depend very much on the availability of statistical data. For reliable scenario analysis information is necessary about the current state of the building stock (How many buildings and heating systems have been refurbished until now?) and about the current trends (How many buildings and heating systems are being refurbished every year?). The availability and regular update of the relevant statistical data will be an important basis for the development and evaluation of national climate protection strategies in the building sector