Multi-objective optimization for existing buildings retrofitting under government subsidization

Abstract

The refurbishment of existing buildings allows remarkable improvements in energy performance, even by mature and off‐the‐shelf technologies. However, the pursuit of nearly zero energy buildings in renovation can lead to non-optimal solutions in terms of comfort. Besides, the initial cost can limit the owner in refurbishing buildings or drive the choice toward energy-efficiency measures with minimum initial cost at the expense of energy and non-energy performances. In this regard, financial incentives can be a key driver to stimulate renovation, mobilizing private investments and overcoming the high upfront costs and relatively long pay-back time of the retrofit. In the literature, the real effectiveness of incentives to improve both the comfort and the energy performance of the cost-optimal solutions has not been assessed in depth. This work investigates to which extent the incentives on different typologies of energy-efficiency measures can improve the performance of the optimal retrofits solutions. The analysis has been carried out on a set of different residential building modules, representative of different building typologies and Italian construction periods, located in two different climatic contexts representative of Italy, mixed-humid (Milano) and warm-marine (Messina) (ASHRAE 2007), optimizing the energy, costs, and indoor thermal comfort aspects.