Abstract
The main part of Italian building stock was built before the energy and seismic regulations, so most of buildings need comprehensive refurbishment to achieve the performance required by laws that are in force. This paper presents an experimental study for an energy and structural upgrade methodology, applied to an existing school building in the north-east of Italy. The methodology is based on the International Energy Agency–Energy in Buildings and Communities Programme (IEA–EBC) Annex 56 project guidelines. For the energy retrofit, a set of interventions is defined concerning the building envelope and systems. Among these interventions, the optimal cost is identified: this minimizes the energy demand and the CO2 emissions, and reduces the financial commitment. The analysis of the seismic retrofit is developed using innovative techniques of intervention and high-performance materials. The proposed interventions are evaluated in terms of efficacy and cost. The results show that it is possible to identify a comprehensive energy retrofit at optimal cost, thanks to high energy saving and subsidies. For the seismic retrofit, the intervention with the higher cost-effectiveness ratio is determined, but the related investment does not have a payback time. The union of the two retrofits permits the combination of benefits and has a payback time for both the interventions. It is possible to state that the cost of a combined intervention is lower than the costs of two different interventions; therefore, when a single retrofit is needed, the possibility of a combined intervention should be evaluated.
Highlights
The European Parliament approved the recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD recast) in 2010 [1]
The methodology consists of several steps: definition of reference buildings; definition of energy-efficiency measures (measures based on energy from renewable-energy sources (RES) and/or packages and variants of such measures for each reference building); calculation of primary energy demand resulting from the application of the previously selected measures and/or packages of measures; calculation of global costs in terms of net present value for each reference building; sensitivity analysis related to cost data; and identification of cost-optimal levels in each reference building
Even if the EPDB Directive recast does not consider the application of financial incentives, this study considers the calculation of the Conto Termico 2.0 program, developed by GSE (Gestore dei Servizi Energetici, Rome, Italy), that regulates the incentive for interventions of small dimensions for increasing energy efficiency and for the production of thermal energy from renewable sources
Summary
The European Parliament approved the recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD recast) in 2010 [1]. The RENEW SCHOOL project (2014–2017) aims at retrofitting a large number of school buildings to highest nZEB standards, by promoting appropriate tools and measures, helping to downsize the energy use significantly as well as create and secure comfortable conditions for pupils and teachers [10]. The project covers a complete renovation path, tackling strategies for the envelope, the systems and renewable-energy applications as well as the energy management and users’ behavior. In this context, the first results are presented with case studies of school buildings that have been analyzed in terms of the energy efficiency and cost optimality so as to define a detailed renovation action plan [12]
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