EU targets for sustainable development call for strong changes in the current energy systems as well as committed protection of environmental resources. This target conflicts if a policy is not going to promote the compatible solutions to both the issues. This is the case of the additional renewable energy sources to be exploited for increasing the share in the electricity mix and in the gross final energy consumption. Solar energy is, currently, the cheapest solution in Southern European Countries, like Italy. In this paper, thanks to the availability of three open databases provided by National Institutions, the authors compared the historic trends and policy scenarios for soil consumption, electricity consumption, and renewable electricity production to check correlations. The provincial scale was chosen as resolution of the analysis. The deviations from the policy scenarios was then addressed to identify the demand for policy recommendations and pathways to promote in order to achieve the target for renewable electricity share as well as the reduction in soli consumption trend in 2030. The role of renewables integrated in the existing contexts, such as building integrated photovoltaics, is considered a key driver for solving this issue.

Climate change affects the buildings’ performance, significantly influencing energy consumption, as well as the indoor thermal comfort. As a consequence, the growing outdoor environmental temperatures entail a slight reduction in heating consumption and an increase in cooling consumption, with different overall effects depending on the latitudes. This document focuses attention on the Italian residential sector, considering the current and reduced meteorological data, in anticipation of future climate scenarios. According to a sample of 419 buildings, referring to the climatic conditions of Milan, Florence, Rome, and Naples, the heating and cooling needs are calculated by a simplified dynamic model, in current and future conditions. The effects of the simplest climate adaptation measure, represented by the introduction of new air conditioners, have been also evaluated. The simulations results show an important reduction in complex energy consumption (Milan −6%, Florence −22%, Rome −25%, Naples −30%), due to the greater incidence of heating demand in the Italian context. However, the increase in air conditioning electrical consumption over the hot season (Milan +11%, Florence +20%, Rome +19%, Naples +16%) can play a critical role for the electrical system; for that reason, the introduction of photovoltaic arrays as a compensatory measure have been analysed.

Electrification of the built environment is foreseen as a main driver for energy transition for more effective, electric renewable capacity firming. Direct and on-time use of electricity is the best way to integrate them, but the current energy demand of residential building stock is often mainly fuel-based. Switching from fuel to electric-driven heating systems could play a key role. Yet, it implies modifications in the building stock due to the change in the temperature of the supplied heat by new heat pumps compared to existing boilers and in power demand to the electricity meter. Conventional energy retrofitting scenarios are usually evaluated in terms of cost-effective energy saving, while the effects on the electrification and flexibility are neglected. In this paper, the improvement of the building envelope and the installations of electric-driven space heating and domestic hot water production systems is analyzed for 419 dwellings. The dwellings database was built by means of a survey among the students attending the Faculty of Architecture at Sapienza University of Rome. A set of key performance indicators were selected for energy and environmental performance. The changes in the energy flexibility led to the viable participation of all the dwellings to a demand response programme.

This work shows the results of a research activity aimed at characterizing the energy habits of Italian residential users. In detail, by the energy simulation of a buildings sample, the opportunity to implement a demand/response program (DR) has been investigated. Italian residential utilities are poorly electrified and flexible loads are low. The presence of an automation system is an essential requirement for participating in a DR program and, in addition, it can allow important reductions in energy consumption. In this work the characteristics of three control systems have been defined, based on the services incidence on energy consumptions along with a sensitivity analysis on some energy drivers. Using the procedure established by the European Standard EN 15232, the achievable energy and economic savings have been evaluated. Finally, a financial analysis of the investments has been carried out, considering also the incentives provided by the Italian regulations. The payback time is generally not very long: depending on the control system features it varies from 7 to 10 years; moreover, the automation system installation within dwellings is a relatively simple activity, which is characterized by a limited execution times and by an initial expenditure ranging in 1000 € to 4000 €, related to the three sample systems.