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One of the strategies of the European Green Deal is the increment of renewable integration in the civil sector and the mitigation of the impact of climate change. With a statistical and critical approach, the paper analyzes these aspects by means of a case study simulated in a cooling dominated climate. It consists of a single-family house representative of the 1980s Italian building stock. Starting from data monitored between 2015 and 2020, a weather file was built with different methodologies. The first objective was the evaluation of how the method for selecting the solar radiation influences the prevision of photovoltaic productivity. Then, a sensitivity analysis was developed, by means of modified weather files according to representative pathways defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report. The results indicate that the climate changes will bring an increment of photovoltaic productivity while the heating energy need will be reduced until 45% (e.g., in March) and the cooling energy need will be more than double compared with the current conditions. The traditional efficiency measures are not resilient because the increase of the cooling demand could be not balanced. The maximization of installed photovoltaic power is a solution for increasing the resilience. Indeed, going from 3.3 kWp to 6.9 kWp for the worst emission scenario, in a typical summer month (e.g., August), the self-consumption increases until 33% meanwhile the imported electricity passes from 28% to 17%.
Rosa De Masi; Valentino Festa; Antonio Gigante; Margherita Mastellone; Silvia Ruggiero; Giuseppe Vanoli. Effect of Climate Changes on Renewable Production in the Mediterranean Climate: Case Study of the Energy Retrofit for a Detached House. Sustainability 2021, 13, 8793 .
AMA StyleRosa De Masi, Valentino Festa, Antonio Gigante, Margherita Mastellone, Silvia Ruggiero, Giuseppe Vanoli. Effect of Climate Changes on Renewable Production in the Mediterranean Climate: Case Study of the Energy Retrofit for a Detached House. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (16):8793.
Chicago/Turabian StyleRosa De Masi; Valentino Festa; Antonio Gigante; Margherita Mastellone; Silvia Ruggiero; Giuseppe Vanoli. 2021. "Effect of Climate Changes on Renewable Production in the Mediterranean Climate: Case Study of the Energy Retrofit for a Detached House." Sustainability 13, no. 16: 8793.
The building sector is – directly or indirectly – the first pillar for application of technologies aimed at reducing energy wastes. To achieve sustainable growth goals, worldwide, the building stock needs to be re-developed from the energy viewpoint. This study focuses the attention on the building envelope, since it is the primary subsystem through which energy losses occur between inside and outside environments, by reviewing and discussing the most recent and cutting-edge researches in matter of double-skin and responsive façades for the building retrofit. Each study is investigated by characterizing the technology, the location (i.e., the climatic conditions) and season of analysis, the building intended use and the main findings. The objective is identifying potentialities and recurrent benefits related to the discussed retrofit solutions – such as reduction of energy consumption and CO2-equivalent emissions, exploitation of renewables, conceptual transformation of the building envelope – but also barriers and criticalities – such as overheating risk, lower efficiency of transparent photovoltaics compared to traditional ones, high cost of responsive elements – which have to be addressed and solved in the future. In this vein, a comprehensive snapshot of the evolution of building envelope retrofit solutions is provided with original insights into current and future trends with a view to low- (or zero-) energy buildings. Despite the critical aspects and barriers to overcome, the potential advantages make most of the addressed technologies an important tool to achieve the sustainable renovation of the existing building stock, and therefore their potentialities must be deeply investigated and understood.
Fabrizio Ascione; Nicola Bianco; Teresa Iovane; Margherita Mastellone; Gerardo Maria Mauro. The evolution of building energy retrofit via double-skin and responsive façades: A review. Solar Energy 2021, 224, 703 -717.
AMA StyleFabrizio Ascione, Nicola Bianco, Teresa Iovane, Margherita Mastellone, Gerardo Maria Mauro. The evolution of building energy retrofit via double-skin and responsive façades: A review. Solar Energy. 2021; 224 ():703-717.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFabrizio Ascione; Nicola Bianco; Teresa Iovane; Margherita Mastellone; Gerardo Maria Mauro. 2021. "The evolution of building energy retrofit via double-skin and responsive façades: A review." Solar Energy 224, no. : 703-717.
The accurate simulation of energy performance is fundamental to design low energy buildings – newly-built or after refurbishment – and thus to promote sustainability. However, this is an involved task requiring high complexity in modeling and simulation. Most accurate building energy simulation tools are not user-friendly for building professionals, thereby hindering a widespread use of effective methodologies – developed by researchers – for the transition to nearly- or net-zero energy buildings. This study tries to solve such an issue by proposing a novel, accurate but user-friendly tool for building modeling and energy simulation. The tool is denoted as EMAR because it is based on the advanced coupling between ENergyplus and MAtlab® addressing Residential buildings, which are a major part of the existing stocks. EMAR completely works under MATLAB® environment and only needs around 60 numerical inputs to generate simplified building models and perform accurate energy simulations. The available outputs are numerous referring to energy and economic performance as well as thermal comfort. No drawings, no schemes of energy systems, no deep modeling expertise are required but only few numbers. EMAR is validated against detailed EnergyPlus models of an ASHRAE test building and of two typical European buildings. The discrepancies are lower than 10% as concerns thermal and primary energy needs, and in most cases are lower than 5%, but the modeling complexity and computational burden are drastically reduced. Thus, EMAR can be a precious tool to perform user-friendly but accurate building energy modeling and simulations.
Fabrizio Ascione; Nicola Bianco; Teresa Iovane; Margherita Mastellone; Gerardo Maria Mauro. Conceptualization, development and validation of EMAR: A user-friendly tool for accurate energy simulations of residential buildings via few numerical inputs. Journal of Building Engineering 2021, 44, 102647 .
AMA StyleFabrizio Ascione, Nicola Bianco, Teresa Iovane, Margherita Mastellone, Gerardo Maria Mauro. Conceptualization, development and validation of EMAR: A user-friendly tool for accurate energy simulations of residential buildings via few numerical inputs. Journal of Building Engineering. 2021; 44 ():102647.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFabrizio Ascione; Nicola Bianco; Teresa Iovane; Margherita Mastellone; Gerardo Maria Mauro. 2021. "Conceptualization, development and validation of EMAR: A user-friendly tool for accurate energy simulations of residential buildings via few numerical inputs." Journal of Building Engineering 44, no. : 102647.
The proposed investigation is aimed at providing useful suggestions and guidelines for the renovation of educational buildings, in order to do University classrooms safe and sustainable indoor places, with respect to the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic. Classrooms and common spaces have to be thought again, for a new “in-presence” life, after the recent worldwide emergency following the spring 2020 pandemic diffusion of COVID-19. In this paper, starting from a real case study, and thus the architectural and technological refurbishment of an Italian University building (Campobasso, South Italy, cold climate), with the aims of improving the classrooms’ quality and safety, a comprehensive approach for the retrofit design is proposed. By taking into account the necessary come back to classrooms starting, hopefully, from the next months (Autumn 2020), experimental studies (monitoring and investigations of the current energy performances) are followed by the coupling of different numerical methods of investigations, and thus building performance simulations, under transient conditions of heat transfer, and computational fluid dynamics studies, to evidence criticalities and potentialities to designers involved in the re-thinking of indoor spaces hosting multiple persons, with quite high occupancy patterns. Both energy impacts, in terms of monthly and annual increase of energy demands due to higher mechanical ventilation, and indoor distribution of microclimatic parameters (i.e., temperature, airspeed, age of air) are here investigated, by proposing new scenarios and evidencing the usefulness of HVAC systems, equipment (e.g., sensible heat recovery, without flows’ contamination) and suitability of some strategies for the air distribution systems (ceiling squared and linear slot diffusers) compared to traditional ones.
Fabrizio Ascione; Rosa Francesca De Masi; Margherita Mastellone; Giuseppe Peter Vanoli. The design of safe classrooms of educational buildings for facing contagions and transmission of diseases: A novel approach combining audits, calibrated energy models, building performance (BPS) and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations. Energy and Buildings 2020, 230, 110533 -110533.
AMA StyleFabrizio Ascione, Rosa Francesca De Masi, Margherita Mastellone, Giuseppe Peter Vanoli. The design of safe classrooms of educational buildings for facing contagions and transmission of diseases: A novel approach combining audits, calibrated energy models, building performance (BPS) and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations. Energy and Buildings. 2020; 230 ():110533-110533.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFabrizio Ascione; Rosa Francesca De Masi; Margherita Mastellone; Giuseppe Peter Vanoli. 2020. "The design of safe classrooms of educational buildings for facing contagions and transmission of diseases: A novel approach combining audits, calibrated energy models, building performance (BPS) and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations." Energy and Buildings 230, no. : 110533-110533.
In recent times, the inter-building effect has been deeply investigated because it can highly affect building energy performance. Thus, reliable energy simulations of a single building can require to model the effects of surrounding buildings. This can imply complex models, and consequently high computational burden. The study aims at investigating such phenomena with suitable simplifications by keeping high reliability. Two typical buildings of European cities, located in South Italy, are investigated with building models developed using DesignBuilder® and EnergyPlus. Dynamic energy simulations are performed by using different modeling approaches: detailed modeling, different shading systems, different shading setpoints, no shading, no inter-building effect and the combination no shading and no inter-building effect (simplest model). For each approach different simulation timesteps are considered. The coupling between EnergyPlus and MATLAB® is implemented for a comprehensive comparison of the performance indicators provided by the different approaches. The main goal is to identify the models that ensure the best tradeoff between accuracy and computational burden as well as to verify if these latter can reliably replace the most detailed model. The tradeoff models provide – compared to the most detailed one – mean bias error around 2% and reductions in simulation times around 46%, which can be considered an excellent tradeoff. Finally, the study proposes insights into building modeling to answer the question: Is it fundamental to model the inter-building effect for reliable energy simulations?
Fabrizio Ascione; Nicola Bianco; Teresa Iovane; Margherita Mastellone; Gerardo Maria Mauro. Is it fundamental to model the inter-building effect for reliable building energy simulations? Interaction with shading systems. Building and Environment 2020, 183, 107161 .
AMA StyleFabrizio Ascione, Nicola Bianco, Teresa Iovane, Margherita Mastellone, Gerardo Maria Mauro. Is it fundamental to model the inter-building effect for reliable building energy simulations? Interaction with shading systems. Building and Environment. 2020; 183 ():107161.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFabrizio Ascione; Nicola Bianco; Teresa Iovane; Margherita Mastellone; Gerardo Maria Mauro. 2020. "Is it fundamental to model the inter-building effect for reliable building energy simulations? Interaction with shading systems." Building and Environment 183, no. : 107161.
The necessity to predict building energy performance assumes a predominant role today. Present regulations in energy matter introduce pressing objectives for the energy requalification of buildings. Within spring 2020, EU Member States must adopt the European Directive 2018/844, which focuses the attention on present buildings. It establishes new obligations to retrofit the existing building stock. Solutions to improve building energy performance and to achieve economic, energy, and environmental benefits become mandatory, requiring robust and reliable procedures for energy modeling and simulation. The present study will show the importance of considering a non-standard occupant profile in energy performance simulations. The investigated edifice is a typical residential building in Naples (southern part of Italy, Mediterranean climate), built during the sixties and seventies. For the energy retrofit of the building, the most common refurbishment interventions in the Neapolitan building stock will be assessed for energy, economic and emissions savings, and thus new thermal insulation and replacement of windows. Firstly, the results will be analyzed by taking into account a standard-use profile of the occupants. Secondly, the possible wrong behaviors of users will be examined, to compare an “energy-intensive” model with the standard retrofitted model. The impact on building energy demand of the following actions will be analyzed: more energy-intensive use of the electric and lighting systems, the opening of the windows during the activation hours of the heating/cooling systems, the modification of the thermostat setpoint, the deactivation of the shading systems. The study shows a considerable increase in energy demand, following the wrong behavior of the occupants, which affects the economic convenience of the refurbishment investment. The energy retrofit is economically and energetically feasible for a standard building occupation, but sometimes wrong habits can reduce the convenience, if energy-intensive behaviors occur. This work will show that, when the numerical building model of a common building refurbishment is realized and when the cost-benefits analysis is performed, the uncertainty in occupant behavior cannot be neglected.
Fabrizio Ascione; Nicola Bianco; Rosa Francesca De Masi; Margherita Mastellone; Gerardo Maria Mauro; Giuseppe Peter Vanoli. The role of the occupant behavior in affecting the feasibility of energy refurbishment of residential buildings: Typical effective retrofits compromised by typical wrong habits. Energy and Buildings 2020, 223, 110217 .
AMA StyleFabrizio Ascione, Nicola Bianco, Rosa Francesca De Masi, Margherita Mastellone, Gerardo Maria Mauro, Giuseppe Peter Vanoli. The role of the occupant behavior in affecting the feasibility of energy refurbishment of residential buildings: Typical effective retrofits compromised by typical wrong habits. Energy and Buildings. 2020; 223 ():110217.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFabrizio Ascione; Nicola Bianco; Rosa Francesca De Masi; Margherita Mastellone; Gerardo Maria Mauro; Giuseppe Peter Vanoli. 2020. "The role of the occupant behavior in affecting the feasibility of energy refurbishment of residential buildings: Typical effective retrofits compromised by typical wrong habits." Energy and Buildings 223, no. : 110217.
The green wall is an engineered technology for stormwater management and climate change mitigation at the urban level. At the building scale, these energy efficiency measures are suitable for improving indoor comfort conditions and for reducing energy needs. Several guidelines are available about vertical greening systems, but these propose design parameters and performance evaluation criteria, often incomparable. In order to facilitate the implementation of proper technical standards, this paper proposes a critical review of more recent scientific investigations. All parameters for the design optimization are discussed as well as the achievable social and private benefits by taking into consideration the type of study (numerical or experimental), the climate conditions, the analysis period, all technical requirements of the green layer as well as of the back wall. The review underlines that a multi-criteria design approach is needed for green vertical systems. Thus, the paper is concluded with a SWOT analysis, evidencing “strengths”, “weaknesses”, “opportunities” and “threats”. The analysis shows that the highlighted benefits will acquire greater relevance considering the increase in global temperatures and the growing need to redevelop densely built urban centers, while some negative aspects may be filled in the future with a deeper preparation of designers and careful choice of materials. The review paper shows, therefore, drivers and barriers occurring designing and implementing green walls.
Fabrizio Ascione; Rosa Francesca De Masi; Margherita Mastellone; Silvia Ruggiero; Giuseppe Peter Vanoli. Green Walls, a Critical Review: Knowledge Gaps, Design Parameters, Thermal Performances and Multi-Criteria Design Approaches. Energies 2020, 13, 2296 .
AMA StyleFabrizio Ascione, Rosa Francesca De Masi, Margherita Mastellone, Silvia Ruggiero, Giuseppe Peter Vanoli. Green Walls, a Critical Review: Knowledge Gaps, Design Parameters, Thermal Performances and Multi-Criteria Design Approaches. Energies. 2020; 13 (9):2296.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFabrizio Ascione; Rosa Francesca De Masi; Margherita Mastellone; Silvia Ruggiero; Giuseppe Peter Vanoli. 2020. "Green Walls, a Critical Review: Knowledge Gaps, Design Parameters, Thermal Performances and Multi-Criteria Design Approaches." Energies 13, no. 9: 2296.
The present work concerns the energy retrofit of a public educational building at the University of Molise, located in Termoli, South Italy. The study provides a comparison of the results obtained by different dynamic simulations of passive strategies to improve thermal comfort and energy behavior of the building during the summer regime. Firstly, the building model was calibrated against historical consumption data. Then, a subsequent step involves the technical-economic analysis, by means of building performance simulations, of energy upgrading scenarios, specifically, cool roof and green roof technologies for the horizontal opaque envelope and thermal insulation, vented façade, and phase change materials’ applications for the vertical opaque envelope. Improving the indoor thermal comfort and reducing the thermal energy demand during summertime through innovative solutions will be the primary objective of the present study. The energy efficiency measures are compared from the energy, emissions, costs, and indoor comfort points of view. Phase Change Materials applied to the inner side of the external walls are analyzed in depth and, by varying their melting temperature, optimization of design is performed too. This innovative material, with a melting temperature of 23 °C and a freezing temperature of 21 °C, determines the reduction of summer energy consumption of 11.7% and the increase of summer indoor comfort of 215 h. Even if consolidated, other solutions, like the cool roof, green roof, thermal insulation, and vented façade induce improvements in terms of summer energy saving, and the percentage difference compared to the basic building is less than 2%. For this case study, a Mediterranean building, with construction characteristics typical of the 1990s, traditional passive technologies are not very efficient in improving the energy performance, so the investigation focused on the adoption of innovative solutions such as PCMs, for reducing summer energy demand and improving indoor thermal comfort.
Fabrizio Ascione; Nicola Bianco; Rosa Francesca De Masi; Margherita Mastellone; Giuseppe Peter Vanoli. Phase Change Materials for Reducing Cooling Energy Demand and Improving Indoor Comfort: A Step-by-Step Retrofit of a Mediterranean Educational Building. Energies 2019, 12, 3661 .
AMA StyleFabrizio Ascione, Nicola Bianco, Rosa Francesca De Masi, Margherita Mastellone, Giuseppe Peter Vanoli. Phase Change Materials for Reducing Cooling Energy Demand and Improving Indoor Comfort: A Step-by-Step Retrofit of a Mediterranean Educational Building. Energies. 2019; 12 (19):3661.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFabrizio Ascione; Nicola Bianco; Rosa Francesca De Masi; Margherita Mastellone; Giuseppe Peter Vanoli. 2019. "Phase Change Materials for Reducing Cooling Energy Demand and Improving Indoor Comfort: A Step-by-Step Retrofit of a Mediterranean Educational Building." Energies 12, no. 19: 3661.