Policy Challenges for the Development of Energy Flexibility Services

European energy policies call for an increased share of renewable energy sources and a more active role of the energy consumer. This is facilitated by, amongst others, buildings becoming energy flexible hubs, supporting smart energy grids with demand response strategies. While there is abundant technical research in this field, the related business and policy development is less well documented. This research scopes existing policy programmes and identifies opportunities and barriers to business development supporting energy flexible buildings. Using examples from seven European countries, this work reviews influencing niche management factors such as existing policy instruments, business development cases and identified stakeholder concerns, using literature research, narrative analysis and stakeholder research. National policy pathways show many differences but confirm that European buildings might become active players in the energy market, by providing energy storage, demand response and/or shifts in the use of energy sources. Slow sustained business development for energy flexibility services was mainly identified in the retail industry, and for energy service companies and aggregators. The direct involvement of end users in energy flexible buildings is still difficult. Stakeholders call for policy improvement, especially concerning the development of flexible energy tariffs, supporting incentives, awareness raising and more stakeholder-targeted business development

Cause specific mortality in an Italian pool of asbestos workers cohorts

Background Asbestos is a known human carcinogen and is causally associated with malignant mesothelioma, lung, larynx and ovarian cancers.Methods Cancer risk was studied among a pool of formerly asbestos-exposed workers in Italy. Fifty-two Italian asbestos cohorts (asbestos-cement, rolling-stock, shipbuilding, and other) were pooled and their mortality follow-up was updated to 2018. Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) were computed for major causes of death considering duration of exposure and time since first exposure (TSFE), using reference rates by region, age and calendar period.Results The study included 63,502 subjects (57,156 men and 6346 women): 40% who were alive, 58% who died (cause known for 92%), and 2% lost to follow-up. Mortality was increased for all causes (SMR: men = 1.04, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.03-1.05; women = 1.15, 95% CI 1.11-1.18), all malignancies (SMR: men = 1.21, 95% CI 1.18-1.23; women = 1.29, 95% CI 1.22-1.37), pleural and peritoneal malignancies (men: SMR = 10.46, 95% CI 9.86-11.09 and 4.29, 95% CI 3.66-5.00; women: SMR = 27.13, 95% CI 23.29-31.42 and 7.51, 95% CI 5.52-9.98), lung (SMR: men = 1.28, 95% CI 1.24-1.32; women = 1.26, 95% CI 1.02-1.53), and ovarian cancer (SMR = 1.42, 95% CI 1.08-1.84). Pleural cancer mortality increased during the first 40 years of TSFE (latency), reaching a plateau thereafter.Conclusions Analyses by time-dependent variables showed that the risk for pleural neoplasms increased with latency and no longer increases at long TSFE, consistent with with asbestos clearance from the lungs. Peritoneal neoplasm risk increased over all observation time

Assessing the energy flexibility of building clusters under different forcing factors

Given the increasing penetration of variable renewable resources in energy networks, future buildings should become flexible, i.e., able to modify their energy demands in response to external forcing factors to pursue specific goals. Furthermore, strong interaction among interconnected prosumer buildings and energy systems will require flexible energy management strategies at cluster level. Accordingly, this study implements the IEA EBC Annex 67 approach and proposes a quantification methodology to assess the energy flexibility performance of building clusters. The availability of renewable energy sources and carbon intensity in the energy mix are selected as forcing factors and a rule-based control scheme is applied to the space heating set-point to exploit thermal storage in the building structure. Specific indicators are defined to quantify flexibility as (i) a reduction in energy demand not covered by renewables or (ii) a percentage decrease in carbon emissions enabled by smart control of the cluster, compared to a reference scenario. The methodology is applied to four cluster configurations characterized by different building thermal mass levels, modeled in Dymola dynamic simulation environment. Results show that smart operation for simulated clusters enables an improvement of renewable energy usage (up to a 13% saving of the residual annual heating demand), and up to an 18% reduction of energy-related carbon emissions. The suggested quantitative assessment and indicators represent valuable support for building designers to easily compare multiple technological solutions and design strategies in terms of energy flexibility

Bottom-up building stock retrofit based on levelized cost of saved energy

Policy makers need scientific support to set ambitious yet realistic environmental targets for the transition to energy efficient buildings and to develop cost-effective policies to meet these targets, but comprehensive, manageable procedures to this aim are still lacking. Our proposed method ranges from baseline creation to transition scenarios depending on annual retrofit budget and specifies the buildings to renovate according to location, size, and age, and the energy efficiency measures to apply based on cost and energy saving. We show how to extrapolate a baseline from few available data, determine retrofit costs, and create calibrated models to estimate energy savings. Retrofits are ranked by levelized cost of saved energy, which ensures that for any budget allocated to retrofit maximum energy savings are obtained at minimum cost to society. The results are summarized in an energy efficiency cost curve enabling policy makers to estimate potential costs and energy savings. We demonstrate the method on a housing stock in northern Italy and show that facade insulation of old buildings in colder climates can compete with gas heating. About 60% baseline energy consumption can be saved doubling current investments, while a maximum saving of 75% requires over three times the current investments

Opaque building envelope

The refurbishment of building opaque envelope represents an important approach for the reduction in global European energy consumption as prescribed by the Directive 2010/31/EU. Therefore, the knowledge of existing housing stock and their hygrothermal behaviour is necessary to define effective energy conservation measures. In this chapter, starting from the definition of the main thermal and hygrometrical parameters, a systematic analysis of the most common wall typologies in European construction is carried out for the definition of a structure catalogue. Moreover, for a set of envelope insulation interventions, the hygrothermal behaviour is evaluated and some diagrams for the assessment of the optimal intervention are defined. Finally, the incidence in terms of energy performance is tested considering a case study

On the influence of several parameters in energy model calibration: The case of a historical building

The aim of this work is to investigate the extent to which several different variables (e.g. climate conditions, infiltration rates and envelope characteristics) could affect the calibration process and, consequently, the reliability of the simulation outcomes. In this regard, in this paper the calibration phases of a dynamic hourly energy model for an existing building are presented. The test case is a historical construction built at the end of the nineteenth century in northern Italy. The building, originally designed for tobacco processing, has a massive envelope and it has no HVAC system. Therefore, the simulation model is calibrated using the actual air and wall surface temperature as control variables. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is carried out in order to assess the incidence of different inputs in building thermal behaviour and to identify which parameters have to be refined with the aim of optimizing the model calibration

The calibration process of building energy models

The importance of model calibration has been growing up as a result of the energy refurbishment policy promoted by the recast Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD 2010/31/EU). In fact, with the purpose of ensuring a suitable refurbishment design with effective energy conservation measures (ECM), an accurate model has to be defined in order to assess the energy behaviour of the as-built building. In this chapter, some issues related to the model calibration are presented, starting from the definition of an operative procedure step by step. Furthermore, for the most critical phases of the procedure, analysis techniques and experimental methods are described both through theory and practical examples. Finally, throughout the chapter, the analysis of a case study is presented

Towards a systematic approach for energy refurbishment of historical buildings: the case study of Albergo dei Poveri in Genoa, Italy

The monumental complex “Albergo dei Poveri” was built between the late seventeenth century and the middle of the nineteenth, as a structure for charitable purposes and it represents an important urban structure. The building was completely abandoned for more than a decade. Therefore a renewal project was defined in order to allow a complete use of the building as a university campus. Given its size and location in the heart of the city, the building could represent in the future a great opportunity for urban renewal. The University Rector assigned to the Postgraduate School in Architec-tural and Landscape Heritage the task of preliminary researches related to the building refurbishment. In particular, a feasibility study was drawn up, considering the main fea-tures of the structure to obtain an efficient use of energy resources. Supported by Ansal-do Energia, an analysis to define the most suitable solutions for energy efficiency was started. Considering the importance of the structure at urban level, this study has been proposed to take part at the project “Genova Smart City”. In this paper, the general criteria for the building refurbishment, in relation to the architectural and historical commitments, are presented