National scientific report on the TABULA activities in Italy

The Italian contribution to the TABULA research project is decribed. Ii was addressed to: - the development of the harmonised structure for the Italian typology and the supply of input data on buildings, constructions and systems (heating and DHW), which constitute the main data for the webtool; - the application of the typology concept for the assessment of the energy performance of residential buildings and for the evaluation of the impact of energy conservation measures, through the calculation of the energy performance of the building-types; - the use of the typology concept to create a model for the estimation of the national energy balance of the residential building stock by the support of national statistical dat

Improving energy modeling of large building stock through the development of archetype buildings

12th Conference of International Building Performance Simulation Associatio

Evaluation of refurbishment alternatives for an Italian vernacular building considering architectural heritage, energy efficiency and costs

Despite the majority of legislative requirements in terms of energy performances is not addressed to historical buildings, there is an increasing consciousness on their relevance to reach the European CO2 emissions’ reduction goals. This paper engages the theme of traditional buildings’ refurbishment, with a view to the necessity of a conscious intervention in terms of heritage preservation, energy efficiency and financial viability. In particular, the research analyzed a real case study of a rural building located in North Italy; the main objective of the study is to compare two different refurbishment scenarios by simultaneously considering architectural, energy and financial aspects

Insights on Smart Home Concept and Occupants’ Interaction with Building Controls

The increasing attention for energy efficiency in buildings stimulates the expansion of “Smart buildings”. In offices and homes, building automation systems are suited to individuals, foresighting their needs. Occupants’ compliance is a fundamental requirement for a successful adoption of building automation systems. An important warning regards that such “smart behaviour” of the building should match with the occupants’ satisfaction and their feeling of controlling the living environments. A balance between energy efficiency and occupants’ needs is required. This paper aims at providing insight on the concept of “Smart Home” considering the adaptive actions performed by occupants to restore their wellbeing

Data Mining of Occupant Behavior in Office Buildings

Literature studies confirm occupant behavior is setting the direction for contemporary researches aiming to bridge the gap between predicted and actual energy performance of sustainable buildings. Using the Knowledge Discovery in Database (KDD) methodology, two data mining learning processes are proposed to extrapolate office occupancy and windows’ operation behavioral patterns from a two-years data set of 16 offices in a natural ventilated office building. Clustering procedures, decision tree models and rule induction algorithms are employed to obtain association rules segmenting the building occupants into working user profiles, which can be further implemented as occupant behavior advanced-inputs into building energy simulations

Building Typology Brochure – Italy. Fascicolo sulla Tipologia Edilizia Italiana. Nuova edizione.

Si illustra l'aggiornamento della tipologia edilizia nazionale già sviluppata nell'ambito del progetto europeo TABULA. Ogni tipologia nazionale è costituita da un insieme di edifici residenziali modello con tipiche caratteristiche energetiche. Ciascun edificio rappresenta un determinato periodo di costruzione e una specifica dimensione. Gli edifici-tipo possono essere utilizzati in ciascun paese come mezzo per rendere nota la prestazione energetica ed i potenziali di risparmio energetico raggiungibili attraverso azioni di riqualificazione dell’involucro edilizio e degli impianti termici. L’aggiornamento della tipologia edilizia nazionale prevede l’analisi della prestazione energetica degli edifici di nuova costruzione, prendendo in considerazione più varianti ai requisiti minimi definiti dalla legislazione vigente; tali varianti includono anche i parametri prestazionali che caratterizzano gli edifici ad energia quasi zero. L’edificio ad energia quasi zero è definito, nella Direttiva 2010/31/UE (EPBD recast), come “edificio ad altissima prestazione energetica, il cui fabbisogno energetico molto basso o quasi nullo dovrebbe essere coperto in misura molto significativa da energia da fonti rinnovabili, compresa l’energia da fonti rinnovabili prodotta in loco o nelle vicinanze”

Defining the Reference Hotel – toward nearly Zero Energy Hotels design

The ever mentioned “cost optimality” and “nearly Zero Energy Buildings” concepts, introduced by the EPBD recast, are still a blurry target at EU Member States’ level for non-residential buildings. Among the uncertainties hampering a quantitative description of cost optimal and nearly Zero Energy (nZE) level of energy performance in these building categories, the definition of the “typical energy use of a building” [1], is a key issue. Indeed, in non-residential buildings the energy use for maintaining occupants’ comfort (identified as the “typical”) is complementary to the energy use for maintaining the offered services’ quality. Given the general issue, the paper focuses on hotels. As an initial step toward nZE hotels, this study presents the definition of an existing Reference Hotel. First, typical and extra functions of a small-medium hotel were defined. Then, the general procedure for defining a Reference Hotel (RH) was drafted and an Italian RH was modelled: internal layout, envelope, systems features and operation profiles were identified. A dynamic energy simulation of the model was run to evaluate its energy performances. Results were then compared to benchmarks from literature. Next steps will exploit the Reference Hotel to investigate potential relations with the energy uses for extra services and to propose cost-optimal and energy efficient retrofit measures

Towards high energy performing historical buildings. A methodology focused on operation and users’ engagement strategies

"Historical evidence indicates that when man first considered settlements and the order pertaining the rein, he showed concern for the conservation of this order and of monuments" [1]. Today, the conservation of historical buildings involves also the necessity to adapt them to the current lifestyles and legislation in order to maintain them, wherever possible, as living evidences of the past. One of the most important challenges of adapting historical buildings to future usages is represented by the enhancement of energy performances of these building, that is crucial both for environmental and economic reasons. The aim of this paper is to outline a methodology to investigate the potential energy savings and the enhancement of historical buildings’ livability by acting only on their operation, so that the building fabric could be maintained as much as possible as the original evidence. Furthermore, an example about methodology’s application on a real case study will be described in order to translate the theoretic phases into an operative pla

Fault detection analysis of building energy consumption using Data Mining techniques

This study describes three different data mining techniques for detecting abnormal lighting energy consumption using hourly recorded energy consumption and peak demand (maximum power) data. Two outliers' detection methods are applied to each class and cluster for detecting abnormal consumption in the same data set. In each class and cluster with anomalous consumption the amount of variation from normal is determined using modified standard scores. The study will be helpful for building energy management systems to reduce operating cost and time by not having to detect faults manually or diagnose false warnings. In addition, it will be useful for developing fault detection and diagnosis model for the whole building energy consumption