Energy savings in building restoration - an applicative case

Italy has a historical and architectural heritage which consists mainly of buildings built in different historical period. These buildings are today characterized by some aspects of functional distribution and comfort, which need rehabilitation. This is related to the change thinking on a more comfortable distribution of spaces, and improving the sustainability of buildings. These issues have spurred the study of methods to improve the distribution of spaces, the performance of indoor comfort and the energy efficiency in the full respect of materiality and aesthetics of the building. Therefore, the aim of this rehabilitation is improving the indoor comfort, the energy efficiency and the environmental performance of existing buildings, but it is also to choose more carefully the most environmentally sustainable materials for the restructuring. In this work, a case study of rehabilitation of a historical school building sited in the city of Palermo in Italy is reported

Quantum Computation in a radio single mode cavity: the dissipative Jaynes and Cummings Model

Our aim is to give an account, trough an analysis of a number of papers by F.Petruccione, H.J.Charmicael, J.C. Raimond and their contemporaries, of the specific answer that we gave to the problem of Open Quantum Systems dynamical evolution and how this idea evolves and develops in physical research and in the scientific debate of the following decades. Permanent solution should not been accepted from physical research, but analysis of the real work of scientists, of the difficulties they face and the ever changing solutions they offer is, we believe, part of our understanding of science and an indispensable basis for further methodological inquiries. In this paper we have chosen to analyze a dissipative Jaynes-Cummings model assuming the common electrodynamics free field for the bipartite system and an another independent bath for the cavity, so taking into account loosing of energy because of the imperfect mirrors. The Nud theorem application leads to predict new cooperative effects between the atom and the cavity mode as the creation of conditional transient entanglement, tending to become stationary as the coupling constant take a well defined value

Enhance Urban Energy Management and Decarbonization Through an EC-based Approach

Promoting energy efficiency and decarbonization in urban settings, hence also in the variety of buildings within them, is amongst modern society major challenges. Urban settings are, in fact, responsible for almost 40% of energy consumption and energy-related pollutant emissions worldwide. In this framework, particular emphasis has been given by the EU and its member States on improving the energy performance of built environments by reducing buildings' energy consumption (retrofit interventions), by fostering the integration of renewable energy sources (RES), and by encouraging the establishment of pro-con-sumer groups/units (e.g., Energy Communities – ECs, consortia, etc.). These latter include users that share and collaborate in the energy management. Consequently, the need has arisen for more efficient energy management within individual ECs and between different ECs and public administrations and other potential stakeholders. Considering that ECs are a relatively recent reality, this paper discusses possible approaches to overcome some of the critical issues that have emerged from the Energy Community initiatives that are beginning to emerge recently

Forecasting green roofs’ potential in improving building thermal performance and mitigating urban heat island in the Mediterranean area: An artificial intelligence-based approach

Green roofs are widely used in hot or cold climates mainly because they are capable to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and, when implemented at a large scale, reducing air pollution and the urban heat island effect (UHI) in urban contexts. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) black-box algorithms are a valid alternative to studying complex systems. However, the literature highlights - quite surprisingly – none of the available research refers to coupling ANNs and green roofs in the Mediterranean area, where green roofs are instead considered one of the most suitable technologies to reduce the high cooling demand. Therefore, the objective of this research work is to create and validate an ANN for the prediction of the monthly green roof’s internal and external surface temperatures and the monthly internal air temperature, starting from different green roof parameters and climatic variables. Specifically, the ANN was created with reference to a Mediterranean climate considering an existing green roof on a building of the University of Palermo characterized by a cooling demand predominance; 180 green roof configurations, obtained by varying the characteristic parameters of vegetation (plant height, leaf area index and leaf reflectivity) and the substrate thickness and thermophysical properties (lightweight and heavyweight), were dynamically simulated on an hourly basis to build the training dataset. In addition, other 72 green roof configurations were simulated to generate the dataset for the validation purpose of the ANN accuracy. The optimal ANN-related architecture consists of 90 neurons with one hidden layer and guarantees very high accuracy predictions. The outcomes of this research represent a useful tool to determine the thermal response of green roofs and their impact on the building energy demand and indoor thermal comfort and UHI mitigation

Synthetic environmental appraisal of waste management system: an application to the Sicilian region

This paper addresses the problem of synthetically evaluating the environmental performances of urban solid waste systems. This, in fact, represents a crucial point in the management process of complex systems that local administrations are called to cope with, in order to provide decisions about policy options that involve different issues characterising the quality of life of people. Suitable methods of evaluation are clearly required for this aim. This work introduces the dashboard of sustainability and the ecological footprint approaches as aggregate indicators of the performances of solid waste management systems. The methods have been selected due to their intrinsic simplicities, provided that the required data are available, although the first one can be defined as a political tool, while the second one can be defined as a technical tool. An application of both methods to the situation of Sicily is proposed here

Municipal Building Regulations for Energy Efficiency in Southern Italy

The building sector is still one of the most energy consuming sectors in Italy, like developed countries in Europe. At European level, the main policy driver related to the energy use in buildings is the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD, 2002/91/EC) and its recast. Through the EPBD in- troduction, requirements for certification, inspections, training or renovation are now imposed in Member States. In order to fulfill the expected changes, local regulations are a key factor aiming at sustainable territorial planning. It is thus required support the issue of local rules at municipal level in order to guide local administrators and technicians and to limit discretional power of bureaucracy. In this paper, a review of the most common practices for building regulations in Europe and in Italy is proposed, then the role and the framework of a municipal building regulation for the Southern European area accounting for sustainability features is discussed

Public and Private Economic Feasibility of Green Areas as a Passive Energy Measure: A Case Study in the Mediterranean City of Trapani in Southern Italy

Green infrastructure in urban environments provides a wide range of ecological, social, aesthetic, and health co-benefits. Urban plant covers in particular contribute to improved outdoor environmental conditions that, in turn, influence the energy behavior of buildings and their indoor thermo-hygrometric comfort performance. Within this context, this study illustrates a methodology aimed at verifying the economic feasibility of alternative types of green areas for public and private stakeholders, which are analyzed as passive energy measures. Therefore, our methodology integrates approaches from different disciplines and consists of a microclimatic analysis of different vegetation scenarios and of the outdoor comfort level, an evaluation of the energy needs of a sample of houses, and an economic feasibility estimation considering different scenarios and public and private investors. The methodology is illustrated through its application to a suburban district of the Sicilian city of Trapani in the South of Italy, considered representative of Mediterranean climate conditions. Results showed significant differences between the scenario outcomes depending on the type of vegetation used in the green areas and put in evidence how economic feasibility for some stakeholders may be achieved in the management phase if adequate incentives equal to the planting cost are assumed

Improving the sustainability of transportation: environmental and functional benefits of right-turn by pass lanes at roundabouts

The functional performances of conventional roundabouts (single-lane and multi-lane) and innovative roundabouts (spiral, flower, C and turbo) can be improved through right-turn bypass lanes controlled by stop, yield or free-flow signs. The article presents evaluations of the emissions of air pollutants (carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particle pollution (PM10 and PM2.5)), fuel consumption and construction, management, energetic and environmental costs in roundabouts without or with bypass lanes (controlled by stop, yield or free-flow). The suggested methodology has a general character and can be applied as a multi-parametric criterion for choosing road intersections, although, in the present paper, it has been employed only for a case study. For the aims of this research, we employed recent closed-form formulations to determine roundabout performances; moreover, we used the Copert IV® software to estimate air emissions in nine different types of vehicles. Numerous traffic simulations were carried out. The variation in the maximum hourly traffic Qmax and annual traffic QTOT provided the appropriate domains of the examined geometric layouts, both in functional and environmental terms and with regard to generalized costs, estimated for a 10-year period. It resulted that the introduction of right-turn bypasses in all arms of conventional roundabouts with a one ring lane and one lane at the entries (single-lane roundabouts) is the most cost-effective when the flows entering the roundabout are higher than Qmax = 2000 veh/h. Moreover, free-flow bypass lanes always provide greater capacity and lower delays than stop- or yield-signaled bypasses. However, with extremely high Qmax values, stop-controlled bypasses guarantee lower fuel consumption, while those with a yield sign lower total costs

Comparison Between Conventional and Vegetated Roof by Means of a Dynamic Simulation

Abstract In this paper, a dynamic simulation of a building located in the Campus University of Palermo, Italy, has been carried out. We considered two different scenarios; in the first one, the building as it is, with a conventional covering, while in the second one the roof was equipped with a green roof. The results of the two simulations have been compared, suggesting that such building component could contribute to the energy savings of the building. However, it has to be considered as part of other possible actions devoted to improve the energy efficiency of the whole building

The Landfilling of Municipal Solid Waste and the Sustainability of the Related Transportation Activities

The management of municipal solid waste is a crucial issue to address as we move toward the decarbonization of urban contexts. Not by chance, this sector plays a relevant role in the Covenant of Mayors program, whereby municipalities are called to design their own Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SECAPs). However, despite new regulations strongly pushing the recycling and reuse of materials contained in municipal waste, many cities still use large landfills. As part of the overall environmental pressure exerted by these urban systems, the transport of waste from collection points to landfills or treatment facilities must be considered in order to correctly assess the full environmental burden of waste management. To this aim, in this paper, the Ecological Footprint method is applied to the municipal solid waste management system of the city of Palermo (Sicily). The results show that the impacts produced by the means of transport used, both in the status quo and in the assumed enhanced scenario (with less municipal waste disposed to landfills in favor of recycling), are significant compared to those caused by the other segments of the waste management system. The concept of a “saved footprint” is also introduced here, in order to properly compare the two scenarios