Design of the Refurbishment of Historic Buildings with a Cost-Optimal Methodology: A Case Study

Ramos Ramos,Delgado Delgado,Ríos Ríos,Domínguez Domínguez,Moreno Moreno,Rodríguez Rodríguez

doi:10.3390/app9153104

Ramos Ramos, Delgado Delgado + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/app9153104

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Abstract

The transformation of existing buildings into Near Zero Energy Buildings or even positive energy buildings remains a major challenge. In particular, historic buildings are an important cultural heritage that, in most cases, may be rehabilitated and reused for new purposes. However, achieving higher efficiencies in those buildings presents many difficulties, since there is a need to preserve aesthetic values and minimize impact on the buildings’ initial construction. In this work, a roadmap that allows rehabilitating a building from the eighteenth century is developed, turning it into a landmark building, to be used as a museum in the near future. The procedure is based on 3D models using REVIT software and detailed energy simulations supported by a cost-optimal methodology. The results reveal how conventional methodologies shown in the literature may improve the energy performance of the buildings during the heating regime, but performance may deteriorate during the cooling season. For that reason, the present study includes the design of a night ventilation system which allows not only solving this problem but also to reducing the cooling demands by more than 43% with little additional costs. In conclusion, historic buildings (which traditionally have a high thermal mass) have increased thermal storage potential by using the structures of the buildings themselves as well as passive cooling techniques.

Highlights

The European Directive on energy efficiency in buildings (Directive 2018/844/EU) [1] introduced the need to transform new buildings into Near Zero Energy (NZEB) by 2020
Once the optimal heating combination is verified, it is clear how the improvement in heating means an increase in the cooling demand due to the building’s high insulation, which requires night ventilation or solar control to diminish the cooling demand
Starting with the optimal case from the heating regime with the characteristics presented in Table 8, different combinations of night ventilation are applied: 0, 4, 8, 12 and 16 Air Changes per Hour (ACH) using the numerical Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation software [67] for the preliminary calculation of the film coefficients, which later allows the simulation of those alternatives in EnergyPlus [58] to calculate the different demands and obtain the optimal case

Summary

Introduction

The European Directive on energy efficiency in buildings (Directive 2018/844/EU) [1] introduced the need to transform new buildings into Near Zero Energy (NZEB) by 2020. Existing buildings represent the majority of the building stock, and the transition towards achieving a balance between their energy consumption and production (or even buildings with a larger energy generation than that required for their particular use) presents an interesting challenge. In the case of historic buildings, this issue becomes more significant given their relevant cultural value, usually limited by environmental, architectural and artistic restrictions, and governed by specific regulations. There is a great need to propose a replicable methodology to improve the conditions of historic buildings so as to achieve sustainability. Kamari et al [2] demonstrate in their work that.

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