A Case Study of Solar Technologies Adoption: Criteria for BIPV Integration in Sensitive Built Environment

Abstract Solar Photovoltaics is one of the core technologies for a paradigm shift of our electric infrastructure towards distributed generation. In 2011 Italy became the first world market; however, Germany has even the primacy of accumulated power. The installed capacity amounted to 10.000 MW according to data of Italian Manager of Energy Services (GSE) against 1.000 MW in 2010 and 3.000 the beginning of 2011. The projections of GSE include the achievement of the 12.000 MW by the end of the year with more than 350.000 running plants. In a nearly mature market, cost related issues and technical difficulties are encountered in particular in the successful integration within a sensitive and consolidated built environment. The research presented aims to investigate the possible results of an effective use of Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV), choosing existing buildings in the city of Bellinzona (Canton Ticino, CH) as case studies. Bellinzona presents similar characteristics to small Northern Italian cities in terms of built environment characteristic and climate conditions. The theoretical framework for the analysis is the one proposed initially for low energy and nearly net zero energy buildings (NZEB). Although this type of analysis has been developed, in particular, for building with high penetration of renewable energy sources generation (up to 100% of the energy consumed), it seems worth investigating the dynamic interaction of building energy demand, on-site generation and grid with similar tools, because of the necessity of achieving low energy demand also in retrofitted existing buildings in a near future

As meninas: sintaxe narrativa e o tratamento espaço-temporal /

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão

Utilization of Water Resources and Sustainable Crop Production

BIM is representing a shift in the traditional process of building delivery. Its adoption in US reached 71% in 2012 rising from 17% in 2007; moreover, Europe is going to adopt BIM for public contracting as promoted by the European Union Public Procurement Directive. Meanwhile, BIM is widely diffused in UK and Northern Europe, as it includes a more accurate documentation, less rework and shorter project timelines. The use of BIM to provide data for energy performance evaluation and sustainability assessment is defined Green BIM and pioneering design organizations are adopting this approach to enable integrated design, construction and maintenance towards Net Zero Energy buildings. Green BIM includes Building Energy Modelling dealing with project energy performance to identify options optimising building energy efficiency during the life cycle. By allowing revisions during the design phase, project teams can ensure that customers' green ambitions beyond regulation compliance can be realized, together with technical and economic requirements. Thus, BIM can provide information to support the calculation of a number of credit points to define goal levels of sustainability related to rating systems. The aim of the paper is to investigate the opportunity to include the "green dimension" in BIM considering the more diffused rating systems.</p

Tracking users' behaviors through real-time information in BIMs: Workflow for interconnection in the Brescia Smart Campus Demonstrator

An intelligent building supports the needs of its occupants by data analytics. Nowadays, buildings are evolving from being products to become effective service providers for end-users: thus, occupancy topics become crucial. The paper focuses on building operations, pointing out how advantages in supporting the needs of users could be derived through the implementation of Building Management Systems (BMS) into a Building Information Modeling (BIM) environment, connecting real-time information collected by sensors to a BIM database. The connection and the integration of information between BIM and BMS have been established based on the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) neutral data format; moreover, web-interfaces and apps have been tested for enhancing information to be visualized by different end-users. The ongoing research has a twofold scope: 1) to point-out how buildings should evolve, managing knowledge coming from sensors in order to anticipate the needs of users, and 2) to analyze whether and how the centrality of users should change the building process. The proposed workflow has been tested on the Brescia Smart Campus Demonstrator, a building equipped with 94 off-the-shelf sensors

Energy Modelling and Analytics in the Built Environment—A Review of Their Role for Energy Transitions in the Construction Sector

Decarbonisation and efficiency goals set as a response to global warming issue require appropriate decision-making strategies to promote an effective and timely change in energy systems. Conceptualization of change is a relevant part of energy transitions research today, which aims at enabling radical shifts compatible with societal functions and market mechanisms. In this framework, construction sector can play a relevant role because of its energy and environmental impact. There is, however, the need to move from general instances to specific actions. Open data and open science, digitalization and building data interoperability, together with innovative business models could represent enabling factors to accelerate the process of change. For this reason, built environment research has to address the co-evolution of technologies and human behaviour and the analytical methods used for this purpose should be empirically grounded, transparent, scalable and consistent across different temporal/spatial scales of analysis. These features could potentially enable the emergence of &ldquo;ecosystems&rdquo; of applications that, in turn, could translate into projects, products and services for energy transitions in the built environment, proposing innovative business models that can stimulate market competitiveness. For these reasons, in this paper we organize our analysis according to three levels, from general concepts to specific issues. In the first level, we consider the role of building energy modelling at multiple scales. In the second level, we focus on harmonization of methods for energy performance analysis. Finally, in the third level, we consider emerging concepts such as energy flexibility and occupant-centric energy modelling, considering their relation to monitoring systems and automation. The goal of this research is to evaluate the current state of the art and identify key concepts that can encourage further research, addressing both human and technological factors that influence energy performance of buildings

Long-Term Techno-Economic Performance Monitoring to Promote Built Environment Decarbonisation and Digital Transformation&mdash;A Case Study

Buildings&rsquo; long-term techno-economic performance monitoring is critical for benchmarking in order to reduce costs and environmental impact while providing adequate services. Reliable building stock performance data provide a fundamental knowledge foundation for evidence-based energy efficiency interventions and decarbonisation strategies. Simply put, an adequate understanding of building performance is required to reduce energy consumption, as well as associated costs and emissions. In this framework, Variable-base degree-days-based methods have been widely used for weather normalisation of energy statistics and energy monitoring for Measurement and Verification (M &amp; V) purposes. The base temperature used to calculate degree-days is determined by building thermal characteristics, operation strategies, and occupant behaviour, and thus varies from building to building. In this paper, we develop a variable-base degrees days regression model, typically used for energy monitoring and M &amp; V, using a &ldquo;proxy&rdquo; variable, the cost of energy services. The study&rsquo;s goal is to assess the applicability of this type of model as a screening tool to analyse the impact of efficiency measures, as well as to understand the evolution of performance over time, and we test it on nine public schools in the Northern Italian city of Seregno. While not as accurate as M &amp; V techniques, this regression-based approach can be a low-cost tool for tracking performance over time using cost data typically available in digital format and can work reasonably well with limited resolution, such as monthly data. The modelling methodology is simple, scalable and can be automated further, contributing to long-term techno-economic performance monitoring of building stock in the context of incremental built environment digitalization

Innovation and knowledge-based growth for low carbon transitions in the built environment: challenges and open research questions

Humanity faces global challenges in climate change mitigation, water sustainability, and other areas. In order to address these challenges, radical innovation is needed to accelerate multiple “sustainability transitions” and create dynamism. Transitions research has focused on small niches and scales where empirical analysis can be done effectively. Niches and bottom-up initiatives for low carbon transitions in the built environment can help adjust policies and reconcile grand visions (top-down perspective) with ground implementation experiences (bottom-up perspective). Multiple factors can contribute to the creation of effective policies, and digitalisation and AI/ML applications, in the context of increasing automation, can be an opportunity to create new prosperity in a knowledge-based growth perspective, considering, however, the underlying critical assumptions, limitations and threats. Ten research questions deemed relevant for low carbon transitions from a bottom-up perspective have been proposed to generate multiple hypotheses for field testing

Envisioning building-as-energy-service in the European context: From a literature review to a conceptual framework

Positive Energy Buildings (PEBs) represent an emerging paradigm for high performance in the building sector. This paradigm focuses on the possibility of exploiting the interaction between individual NZEBs and smart Smart Grids, using energy surplus exchange. Acknowledging this technical potential, building sector should re-think the role of individual buildings as nodes of intelligent energy infrastructures with large penetration of distributed renewable energy resources. This requires a better understanding of the emerging properties related to PEBs and an organisation of new alliances across sectors in order to put PEBs nets into practice. However, there is no evidence of a comprehensive socio-technical framework concerning PEBs nets working at scale. This paper aims to fill this gap. Through a literature review, based on Constructive Grounded Theory Method, it proposes a new conceptual framework focused on Buildings-as-Energy-Service as a key enabler for creating PEBs nets. Research findings are organized according to four integrated lines of research, which describe: the trajectory towards PEBs nets; the management of new alliances across sectors; the definition of an ecosystem of applications for PEBs; and, the socio-technical implications in putting PBEs into practice. These research lines may contribute to re-inventing the role of the building sector in delivering tailor-made products and services for a low carbon society. Thus, academic and non-academic stakeholders in the fields of Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Planning might find this conceptual framework useful, as it summarises significant potential interactions among these sectors, emerging from recent studies. The limitations of the proposed framework are stressed as an incentive for further research in these areas

Interpretable data-driven building load profiles modelling for Measurement and Verification 2.0

Accelerating the decarbonisation of the built environment necessitates increasing electrification of end-uses, which in turn poses the issue of rethinking the role of energy efficiency in conjunction with flexibility in grid interaction. This requires a better understanding of the electricity load profiles at hourly or sub-hourly intervals using techniques that are simple, reliable, and interpretable. To this extent, this study proposes a reformulation of the Time Of Week and Temperature modelling approach. This approach is able to separate the energy consumption dependence on building operational characteristics (Time Of Week) and on weather (outdoor air temperature), through a highly automated modelling workflow, necessitating minimal effort for model tuning. These features, along with its intrinsic interpretability due to its formulation using multivariate regression and the availability of open-source software, makes it an ideal starting point for applied research. The case study selected for the research is a fully electrified public building in Southern Italy. The building has been monitored for 5 years, before, during and after the COVID-19 lockdown. The novel model formulation is calibrated using hourly interval data with a Coefficient of Variation of Root Mean Square Error in the range of 20.0–28.5% throughout the various monitoring periods. The counterfactual analysis of electricity consumption indicates a 10.7–26.7% decrease in electricity consumption due to operational adjustments following COVID-19 lockdown, highlighting the impact of behavioural change. Finally, the possibility of additional workflow automation and enhanced interpretability is discussed.</p