Impacts of different AHU configurations on health and students’ performance in Italian schools in post-pandemic era

Abstract

With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, several countermeasures in HVAC systems operation have been undertaken to reduce the risk of infection, guaranteeing proper indoor conditions for occupants’ health and performance. Especially in school buildings, where students spend most of their time inside classroom, ensuring a good indoor air quality represents a key factor. For this reason, to gradually return to normal HVAC systems operation, innovative technologies, among which photocatalytic air filters, are in the spotlight. Due to their higher investment costs, there is the need to develop proper methodological approaches able to make their energy, health and performance benefits quantifiable and apparent to consumers, to support the decision-making process. In this context, the paper aims to develop a cost-benefit analysis to compare the impacts of two air handling unit configurations installed in typical Italian schools, being representative of both COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 conditions. The benefit-cost ratio indicator is chosen to present the results showing the goodness of the installation of innovative filtering technology in the post-COVID-19 configuration, in terms of energy-, health- and performance-related benefits.