Building for a Zero Carbon future: Trade-off between carbon dioxide emissions and primary energy approaches

Growing urbanization is driving urban policy makers to adopt sustainable practices aimed to limit the environmental impact of buildings which are responsible for an estimated 36% of climate-changing gas emissions in European cities. In order to meet the ambitious emission reduction targets set by the EU it is essential to develop policy for CO2 emissions saving. This work investigates the regulations of European countries that introduce carbon compliance requirement as implementation of the EPBD such as UK, Ireland, Austria and some Eastern European countries. With reference to the typical consumption pattern of an Italian home, the paper analyses the current limits of primary energy, RES requirements and CO2 emissions, investigating the relations between EPnren and carbon dioxide emissions levels

Energy in cultural heritage: the case study of Monasterio de Santa Maria de Monfero in Galicia

Facing a project aimed at the energy refurbishment in historical buildings means – first of all – to declare which are, for the designer, the priorities to respect. Every intervention on cultural heritage, actually, especially when the focus is pointed to the goal of improving energy and sustainability related aspects, assumes a strong cultural relevance. The case study of the Monastery of Santa Maria de Monfero in Galicia, Spain, is an interesting example to explore the range between a general “adaptive reuse” project and the “energy refurbishment” good practice according to the conservation guidelines for historical buildings. The research is targeted at this monumental complex, which has been in state of abandonment for more than two hundred years, with a large part that is now in ruin. The project that has been used for the research analysis is the result of the first prize in an international ideas competition aimed at giving a new cultural and touristic vocation to the monastery. The competition was won by the Spanish architects Patricia Sabin Diaz and Enrique M. Blanco, co-authors of the paper. A focus of the study here presented was to investigate the actual performance of different building envelope retrofit solutions, in terms of thermohygrometric compatibility between existent wall and new internal insulation layers, thermal comfort provided and energy demand reduction. Results confirmed the importance of evaluating the proper retrofit strategy by coupling heat and moisture simulations and pointed out that guidelines, which can be applied on a "case by case" basis, are needed, since the retrofit of historical buildings represents an important part of conservation and protection actions and not a mere intervention aimed at reducing the energy consumption

Zero Energy Buildings o Zero Emission Buildings?

Nel presente lavoro vengono messi a confronto i principi, attuati nella regolamentazione energetica degli edifici, di limitazione del fabbisogno di energia primaria non rinnovabile e di limitazione della quantità di emissioni di gas serra, tipico quest’ultimo del Regno Unito. Dopo un inquadramento concettuale, gli Autori discutono i risultati di un’applicazione numerica riferentesi ad un’unità abitativa caratterizzata da un modello di consumo energetico annuale tipico della situazione italiana

Evaluating the Impact of Indoor Insulation on Historic Buildings: A Multilevel Approach Involving Heat and Moisture Simulations

The energy refurbishment of historic buildings is a complex task for building envelope designers who need to carefully consider building conservation guidelines and principles. In most cases, external wall insulation techniques can determine an unacceptable alteration of the historical value of a building. For this reason, internal wall insulation techniques have been used widely in the last few decades. Nevertheless, dealing with internal wall insulation requires a complex design to avoid the risk of condensation and moisture-related pathologies. Moreover, an internal wall insulation may have a relevant impact on indoor comfort conditions. In this paper, the Monastery of Santa Maria de Monfero in Galicia (Spain) has been adopted as a building case study to compare different technological solutions based on: (i) an insulating plaster layer, (ii) dry counter wall systems. In the first step, heat and moisture transfer simulations of the wall components were performed to analyze the hygrothermal behavior of the different alternatives considering two different climate conditions. In a second step, a simulation of the whole building was performed to analyze the impact of the retrofitting strategies on the indoor climate and on the building heating and cooling demand. The obtained results show that the counter wall solution leads to higher energy savings during the heating season in the colder winter climate. However, the use of insulating thermal plaster could also be a viable solution since they lead to several advantages in summer because of their higher thermal inertia. Therefore, the selection of the most appropriate insulation technique has to be evaluated carefully considering the outdoor/indoor climate and using a case-by-case approach