Heating Systems

Within the current context of energy, there are several ways to meet the challenges of durable development. Efficiency in energy use, considered to be the fifth energy source, as well as the use of sustainable energy sources represent critical objectives. Nowadays, almost 50% of the total energy consumption in Europe is consumed by building heating and cooling. The current heat demand is mainly covered by conventional energy—fossil fuels. Consequently, there is a significant growth potential for the use of renewable energy sources (RES) in order to produce heat. One can expect in the near future that the energy systems would include a larger percentage of renewable sources, so the increase of the RES share is one of the main objectives of the thermoenergetic field. This chapter approaches heating system typology, the performance indicators used to asses the hybrid heating systems, and at the same time synthetising the assumptions of ensuring the optimum operating conditions.

Considerations Regarding the Green Retrofitting of Residential Buildings From Human Wellbeing Perspectives

Currently, buildings are considered to be a continuously evolving organism that over time has to be treated, rehabilitated, and upgraded to meet the requirements set by the user at a certain stage. Buildings are a central element of the EU member states' energy efficiency policies, accounting for about 40% of final energy consumption, and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions, and about 75% of buildings are not energy efficient. Recent applications and studies establish that green retrofitting has maintained older existing buildings to increase energy efficiency, optimize building performance, increase occupants' satisfaction, and boost economic return while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. In this regard, this chapter aims to address the main factors that negatively affect the performance of residential buildings and presents the common green retrofitting measures that can be taken to ensure the state of human well-being in residential buildings.

Phenomena Implied by Sustainable and Green Retrofitting

With all the new technology and scientific progress, the human population is significantly increasing, and the planet will hardly support the overpopulation. The increase of the carbon footprint and natural resources decrease with each human. Society must find solutions to use resources in a smart way, reducing the ecological impact and stopping the cities from sprawling. Instead of extending the manmade environment and using more resources, we can act on what we have, upgrading our buildings by using sustainable and green retrofitting and making them energy efficient and environmentally friendly, while covering our cultural, social and psychological needs. Overpopulation, as well as depopulation/migration, greatly affects architecture. This study aims at finding retrofit solutions and strategies in an attempt to improve the existing urban environment quality and buildings' energy efficiency, provide interior comfort and contribute to aesthetic urban image, as well as doing so in a cheap and efficient way.

Green Retrofit Energy Efficiency Potential on Existing Building Envelope for Residential and Non-Residential Building

The chapter deals with the green energetic consideration of today's building envelopes for residential and non-residential buildings. It investigates the energetic effects the envelopes have on energy efficiency, energy consumption, material use, sustainable use of resources, lifetime considerations, economic and ecological impact. Today's it is estimated that approximately 30% of the annual primary energy demand for residential and non-residential buildings is needed. Energy resources for heat, electricity, air conditioning and cooling purposes, fossil fuels in form of gas and liquid are predominantly used.

Retrofitting for Energy Management

According to ISO 50001, energy management systems are increasingly being implemented in companies, with the continuous measurement of energy consumption playing an important role. At the same time, energy meters are increasingly becoming cyber-physical systems (CPS) in the IoT age. LPWAN radio networks and IoT clouds open up new possibilities for retrofitting meters and industrial components. By using these technologies, the measurement infrastructure of an energy monitoring system can be cost-effectively expanded. This section presents the technologies relevant for energy management and shows their application using selected use cases for LoRaWAN, OPC UA, and the combination of optical character recognition (OCR) and IoT Cloud.

Building Information Modeling for Energy Retrofitting

In the era of strong IT development, superior processing of information is a desideratum in any business. Used in modeling and simulation, information has better capitalization, having a cognitive role; introduced in various algorithms and models can generate knowledge and wisdom. The processing of information is realized within the information systems (IS). A sub-domain of the energy sector that has developed in recent years is energy retrofitting, seen as a border subdomain, including specific elements from building construction and the energy field, for building analysis and construction process to achieve much larger energy savings. The development of retrofitting can be organized, through using BEM (Building Energy Model) and Building Information Modeling (BIM) models.

Smart Homes as a Solution for Sustainable and More Inclusive Retrofitting of Existing Buildings

All around the world, taking stock of buildings older than 1970, when the first energy efficiency arose, is an important one. Today, all urban agglomerations confront themselves with environmental problems generated by air pollution, cars, and buildings, vie for the first place as the highest polluters. In the future, cities will become increasingly populated, and as a result these problems will more and more affect the quality of life. A way to prevent this scenario is a gradual transition to smart cities. In this approach, smart houses will become indispensable. In order to maintain unaltered cities' specificity, the only acceptable solution is to retrofit old buildings, especially of those classified as historical monuments or as iconic buildings. By retrofitting these buildings, they could be prepared for integration in future cities.

Business Models for Green Retrofitting

This chapter is dedicated to business models for green retrofitting on a more holistic approach that enables to think and integrate the economic, social and environmental perspective in a business model. The chapter is a result of research regarding new business models for green retrofitting and presents a framework for developing business models for green retrofitting in the building sector based on the Triple-Layer Business Model Canvas. The business models for green retrofitting could be an important instrument for introducing new green characteristics such as energy efficiency, optimal energy performance, and new comfort standards in the building environment. Green retrofitting is responding to the dynamics of the economic and technological development, and to the new lifestyle of the peoples. The implementation of such a model will be also a catalyst for reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases in the building environment.

Economic Analysis for Green Residential and Non-Residential Building Envelopes

Renovating buildings is more useful than ever. Due to future rising energy prices, energy costs in poorly insulated buildings are an important component of operating costs. Another important point is the rapidly growing emissions from the combustion of fossil energy sources. Good insulation in buildings reduces the amount of primary energy and thus, less greenhouse gases are emitted. The renovation potential is high. A large part of the properties consumes more energy than would actually be necessary. Common construction without thermal insulation is responsible for this. It is advisable to invest in renovation, also, in thermal insulation. This will benefit you in two ways. The ancillary (additional) costs will be reduced massively, the living comfort increases and by today's state subsidies in many countries they will make a contribution to the investment costs.

Comparative Analysis Regarding the Online Interest of Consumers Towards Green Retrofitting

Green retrofitting and housing energy efficiency are some of the most debated topics nowadays. They contribute to lower costs for the involved households and more efficient sources of energies, which lead to a cleaner environment. The number of methods and devices for increasing the energy efficiency of housing ranges from very simple methods to complex ones. In spite of the fact that in the research there is high interest for the development of energy-efficient housing systems, it is also important to inform the consumer about the existence of such devices and to convince them to use these types of systems more frequently. The objective of the chapter is to give an overview of the popularity and the interest of the consumers towards different forms of housing energy efficiency systems and green retrofitting methods.