Abstract
Buildings in Europe account for 40% of total primary energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions. Nearly one-half of the building stock was built before modern energy efficiency standards and need urgent renovation. Urban retrofitting has emerged as a crucial factor for bringing about a radical change, the new construction rate being lower than 1%. Nevertheless, an accepted and consolidated methodology for refurbishing the existing housing stock is still lacking. The study presents an operating methodology for the optimization of the retrofitting process, based on energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness, as well as users’ comfort, in the building asset of ITEA SpA, the social housing institute for the Province of Trento (Italy), which manages more than 600 buildings. The research consists of the following stages: (1) definition of building classes, similar in age, dimension, typology, construction system and location; (2) analysis of plant systems and recognition of cases significant for classifying buildings in term of energy class; (3) identification of possible improvements and related cost-benefits; and (4) extension of the results to the whole building class. A tool is here proposed, intended for use by ITEA in order to set medium- and long-term plans. The tool does not consider only the effective sustainability of the controlling body intervention but also the final users’ full satisfaction.
Highlights
Buildings in Europe account for 40% of total primary energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions
In most EU countries new constructions range around only 1% per year of the total building stock, so that the impact of energy regulations is limited and insufficient when not applied to the existing buildings [2]
Standard EN 15603:2008 [30] states that “If the building has a known typology, the thermal transmittance of the envelope components can be taken from building typology prepared at national level”, which implies that the energy performance of a building can be considered similar to the performances of those with the same typology
Summary
Buildings in Europe account for 40% of total primary energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions. Recent studies confirm this assumption considering the fact that in the Italian municipalities approximately 37% of the emissions are due to housing [1]. The European Directive 2010/31 stresses that energy retrofitting should aim “to achieve cost-optimal levels” [3]. This context calls for approaches and tools that help the decision-making process
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