scholarly journals Research in Sustainable Energy Systems at the Department of Management and Engineering during the First 15 Years of 2000

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (24) ◽  
pp. 12155
Author(s):  
Giacomo Bagarella ◽  
Filippo Busato ◽  
Francesco Castellotti ◽  
Andrea D’Ascanio ◽  
Renato Lazzarin ◽  
...  

At the Department of Management and Engineering (DTG) of the University of Padova (Italy), the research team led by Prof. Renato Lazzarin, formed by the authors, worked during the first fifteen years of the millennium on different topics focused on sustainable technologies for energy production and utilization in buildings. Both experimental and theoretical/modeling studies were carried out, all sharing the evaluation of energy performance and sustainability: From the life cycle assessment and life cycle cost of building insulation materials in Italy, to the measurement of energy performance of a green roof, to the experimental measurement of different photovoltaic/thermal modules, to the development of a simulation software for direct and indirect evaporative cooling techniques, to the evaluation of different energy savings techniques for refrigeration and air conditioning in supermarkets, to an extensive analysis of the urban heat island effect in the city of Padova. The paper summarizes the main theoretical and experimental approaches, providing the methods adopted in each line of research. The main results of the studies conducted during the fifteen-year period are described and commented on, some of which were a well-established reference for the following literature.

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 2218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lina La Fleur ◽  
Patrik Rohdin ◽  
Bahram Moshfegh

This study addresses the life cycle costs (LCC) of energy renovation, and the demolition and construction of a new building. A comparison is made between LCC optimal energy renovations of four different building types with thermal performance, representing Swedish constructions from the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, as well as the demolition of the building and construction of a new building that complies with the Swedish building code. A Swedish multi-family building from the 1960s is used as a reference building. LCC optimal energy renovations are identified with energy saving targets ranging between 10% and 70%, in addition to the lowest possible life cycle cost. The analyses show that an ambitious energy renovation is not cost-optimal in any of the studied buildings, if achieving the lowest LCC is the objective function. The cost of the demolition and construction of a new building is higher compared to energy renovation to the same energy performance. The higher rent in new buildings does not compensate for the higher cost of new construction. A more ambitious renovation is required in buildings that have a shape factor with a high internal volume to heated floor area ratio.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (16) ◽  
pp. 3038 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Sánchez Ramos ◽  
MCarmen Guerrero Delgado ◽  
Servando Álvarez Domínguez ◽  
José Luis Molina Félix ◽  
Francisco José Sánchez de la Flor ◽  
...  

The reduction of energy consumption in the residential sector presents substantial potential through the implementation of energy efficiency improvement measures. Current trends involve the use of simulation tools which obtain the buildings’ energy performance to support the development of possible solutions to help reduce energy consumption. However, simulation tools demand considerable amounts of data regarding the buildings’ geometry, construction, and frequency of use. Additionally, the measured values tend to be different from the estimated values obtained with the use of energy simulation programs, an issue known as the ‘performance gap’. The proposed methodology provides a solution for both of the aforementioned problems, since the amount of data needed is considerably reduced and the results are calibrated using measured values. This new approach allows to find an optimal retrofitting project by life cycle energy assessment, in terms of cost and energy savings, for individual buildings as well as several blocks of buildings. Furthermore, the potential for implementation of the methodology is proven by obtaining a comprehensive energy rehabilitation plan for a residential building. The developed methodology provides highly accurate estimates of energy savings, directly linked to the buildings’ real energy needs, reducing the difference between the consumption measured and the predictions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 03065
Author(s):  
Yiğit Yılmaz ◽  
Burcu Çiğdem Yılmaz

The importance of building energy performance has been substantially increasing in the last decades due to the global warming. Therefore, buildings within the existing stock and the new buildings are encouraged to achieve the energy performance restrictions and efficiency levels. In this context, a social housing archetype (Harct), which is constructed in each climate region of Turkey with a common design approach for temperate climate region, is evaluated as a base case to improve the energy performance for the cold climate region by the optimization of the life cycle cost (LCC). It is, namely, aimed to not only improve the energy performance of the archetype but also to ensure optimal cost efficiency as significant criterion. It is focused to optimize the façades of the Harct in terms of window width, and optic and thermo-physical properties of the façade with determining the efficient insulation thickness level for exterior walls and efficient glazing types for windows. Firstly, façade design is analysed to find out the minimum and maximum windows’ widths to achieve the optimal window sizes. Secondly, optic and thermo-physical properties and cost data of the opaque and transparent façade elements have been designated among the market products in accordance with the current regulations. Energy model of the building has been run by Energy Plus simulation tool, in order to integrate it with GenOpt for optimization. Optimization was performed to carry out efficient frontier cases. The results were evaluated from life cycle cost (LCC) and energy efficiency point of view to highlight the cost optimal point


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Nouman Saeed Khan

The specific goal of this project is to model the energy performance of a medical office building in Carrier HAP and NRCan EE4 simulation software in order to qualify for LEED Canada energy and atmosphere perquisite 2 and credit 1. LEED Canada requires that to be eligible for EAp2 and EAc1, the proposed building must be 25% more energy efficient than a reference building which is designed according to Model National Energy Code for Buildings (MNECB). The demise of EE4 has created a demanding need to look for substitute software. One of the tasks of the project is to analyze HAP for EAp2 and EAc1 compliance process. EE4 generates the MNECB reference building itself but in HAP the reference building has to be modelled manually. The results from HAP and EE4 show that energy savings are 39.10% and 38.31% respectively with respect to MNECB reference building.


Author(s):  
Om Taneja

Sustainability goals for buildings are highly acclaimed as public and private sector’s contributions to environmental responsibility, resource efficiency, occupant comfort and well-being. All too often a building’s performance does not meet design expectations, particularly a new building’s energy savings projection that overstates achievable performance. Across the high-performing building industry, these unrealistic energy performance goals have come from, among other things, inadequate modeling and benchmarking practices, unreliable monitoring and equipment controls systems, and significant changes in space usage and tenant improvements. There is still lack of commitment to include operations staff in goal setting and provide adequate budgets for periodic benchmarking, commissioning, and tuning of buildings’ mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. This paper provides the analytical, performance & prescriptive measures for life cycle assessment of energy efficiency projects which can help in making adaptive changes to buildings systems to suit changing uses, or other internal and external factors that directly or indirectly affect performance.


Buildings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurina C. Felius ◽  
Mohamed Hamdy ◽  
Fredrik Dessen ◽  
Bozena Dorota Hrynyszyn

Improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings by implementing building automation control strategies (BACS) besides building envelope and energy system retrofitting has been recommended by the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) 2018. This paper investigated this recommendation by conducting a simulation-based optimization to explore cost-effective retrofitting combinations of building envelope, energy systems and BACS measures in-line with automation standard EN 15232. Two cases (i.e., a typical single-family house and apartment block) were modeled and simulated using IDA Indoor Climate and Energy (IDA-ICE). The built-in optimization tool, GenOpt, was used to minimize energy consumption as the single objective function. The associated difference in life cycle cost, compared to the reference design, was calculated for each optimization iteration. Thermal comfort of the optimized solutions was assessed to verify the thermal comfort acceptability. Installing an air source heat pump had a greater energy-saving potential than reducing heat losses through the building envelope. Implementing BACS achieved cost-effective energy savings up to 24%. Energy savings up to 57% were estimated when BACS was combined with the other retrofitting measures. Particularly for compact buildings, where the potential of reducing heat losses through the envelope is limited, the impact of BACS increased. BACS also improved the thermal comfort.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5843
Author(s):  
Mehdi Chihib ◽  
Esther Salmerón-Manzano ◽  
Mimoun Chourak ◽  
Alberto-Jesus Perea-Moreno ◽  
Francisco Manzano-Agugliaro

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused chaos in many sectors and industries. In the energy sector, the demand has fallen drastically during the first quarter of 2020. The University of Almeria campus also declined the energy consumption in 2020, and through this study, we aimed to measure the impact of closing the campus on the energy use of its different facilities. We built our analysis based upon the dataset collected during the year 2020 and previous years; the patterns evolution through time allowed us to better understand the energy performance of each facility during this exceptional year. We rearranged the university buildings into categories, and all the categories reduced their electricity consumption share in comparison with the previous year of 2019. Furthermore, the portfolio of categories presented a wide range of ratios that varied from 56% to 98%, the library category was found to be the most influenced, and the research category was found to be the least influenced. This opened questions like why some facilities were influenced more than others? What can we do to reduce the energy use even more when the facilities are closed? The university buildings presented diverse structures that revealed differences in energy performance, which explained why the impact of such an event (COVID-19 pandemic) is not necessarily relevant to have equivalent variations. Nevertheless, some management deficiencies were detected, and some energy savings measures were proposed to achieve a minimum waste of energy.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document