Energy Retrofit. A Case Study—Santi Romano Dormitory on the Palermo University

Domenico Curto,Domenico Panno,Andrea Guercio,Vincenzo Franzitta

doi:10.3390/su132413524

Abstract

Electrical and thermal consumption related to buildings, whether civil, commercial, public, or of any other kind, is very much in focus today. With today’s targets for energy savings, reduction of consumption, and environmental impact, it is necessary to carry out energy retrofits to modernize installations and their management. The realization of an effective improvement requires a careful analysis of the case study because each category of building has different requirements such as different load profiles and different installations and needs. This was carried out by studying the electrical and thermal load profiles. A good initial energy audit can provide the retrofit solutions capable of achieving the reduction of energy consumption and the emission of climate-changing gases into the atmosphere. A case study, carried out by the Department of Engineering of Palermo, showed how it is possible to perform an energy retrofit to modernize the energy system of the student dormitory at the University of Palermo. The paper presented a study carried out by programming a series of interlinked calculations in Microsoft Excel. In order to quantify the energy savings of the structure under examination, it is necessary to enter some input data, thanks to which all the formulas implemented in the calculation software were automatically completed. The programming of the calculations makes it possible to carry out an energy retrofit with interventions on the building envelope and the installations. The desire to program an automated calculation by modifying only the input data is intended to replicate a study on other buildings with the same peculiarities. In this way, it is possible to verify which retrofit hypotheses would be useful to upgrade old public administration buildings. In the analyzed case study, 65% of electrical energy and 33% of thermal energy could be saved by replacing generation systems, installing a co-generator, replacing windows, and replacing lamps with LED ones.

Highlights

The problems related to the energy supply have taken on an increasingly important role in the political and economic management of countries in recent years [1]
Building energy consumption is an important issue that the entire world focuses on [2], because both residential and commercial building consumption represents 40% of the total primary energy consumption [3,4]
The power that the prime mover must sheet, where a table shows the values connected to the energy saving

Summary

Introduction

The problems related to the energy supply have taken on an increasingly important role in the political and economic management of countries in recent years [1]. European research data state that it is estimated that the energy consumption of the public buildings accounts for approximately the 10% of the total annual energy of the EU countries [4,5]. The study of the energy consumption of public buildings is very important due to the large number of facilities owned by institutions. If they were all improved from an energy point of view, there would be considerable savings in emissions, primary energy, and money. This article could be used as a sample to be replicated in many public buildings. The possibility of replicating this approach on other public buildings can be very convenient

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