Smart Retrofit Research Articles

Assessing the performance of smart buildings and smart retrofit interventions through key performance indicators: Defining minimum performance thresholds

Smart technologies play a vital role in facilitating the response of buildings to the external conditions, including climate, grid, and the internal building requirements such as user needs. A salient concern lingers in relation to existing buildings due to their increasing energy consumption. Around 35 % of EU buildings are older than 50 years and 90 % are built before the nineties. In this sense, smart retrofitting represents a key step towards achieving energy-responsive flexible buildings. Quantifying building energy performance with appropriate Key Performance Indicators is a critical step towards achieving decarbonization goals in both existing and new buildings. In this paper a group of five representative indicators has been selected to measure the energy performance of smart features in retrofitted and new buildings, also identifying distinct performance thresholds. Therefore, each threshold defines minimum acceptable and top performing values for the indicators. Accordingly, thresholds are set first based on previous literature and performance data, then a Logical Evaluation Methodology is used to identify suitable range of thresholds. Results of this paper propose a quantified definition for smart retrofitting, which involves transforming an existing building into a Smart Building. A smart building is a nearly Zero Energy Building that achieves primary energy savings of 30 % to 80 % and can adapt to changing climate and grid conditions. It should communicate with users and predict operational failures using a Building Energy Management System. Additionally, it should enable load shifting in response to renewable energy source production and electricity prices by 30 % to 70 % annually, while minimizing grid interaction to 10 % to 30 % on an hourly basis throughout the year. Furthermore, it should allow for RES self-consumption of 30 % to 70 % and cover 20 % to 70 % of the load with RES annually. Finally, the indicators are tested on a case study in Italy within a Horizon 2020 project to validate the thresholds.

Smart retrofitting for office buildings: Comparison of decision-making criteria between developing and developed regions

Given the constantly evolving nature of modern infrastructure, retrofitting existing buildings with state-of-the-art smart technologies presents a pivotal opportunity, enabling promising advancements in sustainability, efficiency and adaptability. Focusing on Hong Kong and Sri Lanka, which are developed and developing regions respectively, this study investigates the decision-making criteria for selecting smart systems as retrofits for office buildings. Using the analytic network process (ANP), 24 expert interviews were conducted in Hong Kong and Sri Lanka to determine the importance weights of the decision-making criteria. The findings show varied importance weights for each criterion between the two regions, with Hong Kong emphasizing upfront financial considerations, specifically 'investment cost' while Sri Lanka emphasizing long-term operational sustainability, specifically 'recurring operation, maintenance and repair cost.' Despite these differences, there are similarities in the importance of core criteria such as 'reliability of retrofit option' and 'ability to increase returns.' The lack of focus on user-centric issues in Hong Kong and implementation of retrofit projects in Sri Lanka underscore the need for decision-makers to prioritize these aspects in future projects. The principal contribution of this study is in offering insights from a thorough analysis of the importance weights of the essential criteria in making decisions regarding smart retrofitting (SR). It is also beneficial to various stakeholders, including building owners and facility managers. The cross-region study approach, enabling the investigation on both developed and developing regions, further serves as a foundation for future research aiming to explore and analyze the influence of regional difference in decision-making for SR.

Behavioural Analysis of Water Consumption Using IoT-Based Smart Retrofit Meter

Behavioural Analysis of Water Consumption Using IoT-Based Smart Retrofit Meter

Harnessing Efficiency: Modernizing Electricity Bill System Using Java

The amazing developments in science and technology have raised the bar for human living standards. Without these improvements, the entire planet will be physically congested. Compared to other projects now in existence, this project is innovative in that it simplifies the process of paying an electrical bill. Java has been used to implement this project. The project's goal is to create an application software to lessen the human labour involved in keeping track of the quantity of units consumed by clients and creating power bills based on whether they are individual (house), commercial, or industrial. It shows client information, the units they consumed, and their billing history. If their bill is unpaid, it allows them to pay it. The date of payment will be updated while paying the bill. It maintains error free database and easily incorporates the future developments and changes. Key Words: Bill History, Bill Payment, Electricity Bill, Cash deposit Machine – SIM SMS – Electricity Billing Smart Retrofitting

Phase-Change Material Thermal Energy Storage for the Smart Retrofitting of Existing Buildings

This article presents the use of phase-change material (PCM) thermal storage within the Horizon 2020 HEART project (Holistic Energy and Architectural Retrofit Toolkit), aimed at decarbonising the European building sector through the retrofitting of existing structures into energy-efficient smart buildings. These buildings not only reduce energy consumption, but also incorporate advanced technologies for harnessing green energy, thereby promoting environmental sustainability. The HEART project employs state-of-the-art technologies for electricity production/dispatching and heat generation/storage, managed by a cloud-based platform for the real-time monitoring of parameters and optimising energy utilisation, enabling users to control their environmental comfort. The article provides a detailed examination of one of the project’s demonstration sites in Italy, focusing on various components such as heat pumps, photovoltaic systems (PV), controllers, and particularly emphasising the significance of storage tanks. The study involved the measurement and analysis of three heat storage tanks, each with a total volume of 3000 L. These tanks utilised PCM modules for latent heat storage, significantly enhancing overall heat accumulation. Water served as the heat transfer fluid within the tanks. Through meticulous calculations, the article quantifies the accumulated heat and presents a comparative evaluation between PCM-based storage tanks and conventional water tanks, showcasing the advantages of PCM technology in terms of increased heat retention and efficiency.

Study on the smart transformation strategy of old neighbourhoods based on urban renewal

With the rapid development of the economic level, urban renewal has become a major project in urban construction nowadays. Among urban renewal projects, the renovation of old neighbourhoods is an important part. Most traditional renovations consider only the cost impact, ignoring the influence of the residents’ wishes and environmental factors. Therefore, an intelligent preference model for retrofitting solutions becomes crucial. This study establishes a multi-objective optimisation model for the renovation of old neighbourhoods under the concept of urban regeneration, keeping in mind the theme of smart cities. The study innovatively provides a solution by optimising a genetic algorithm to obtain the optimal solution for the renovation of old neighbourhoods. Through data analysis and model testing of renovated old neighbourhoods, the results show that the method has an error of 2.04 days for the renovation duration, 0.89% for the cost and 0.43% for the quality score. The method significantly improves the efficiency of the search for excellence, while the study provides a reference path for the smart retrofitting of old neighbourhoods.

Smart Retrofit: An Innovative and Sustainable Solution

Recovering old machinery, once it reaches its end of life, allows companies to be sustainable. Several strategies are available for this purpose, both from the point of view of hardware and software modifications. Especially in the industrial sector, these strategies are classified as revamping, remanufacturing and retrofitting. Machinery revamping, retrofitting and remanufacturing are all used to improve industrial equipment performance, efficiency and sustainability. Each approach has unique benefits and trade-offs, depending on the specific needs and requirements of the equipment and business. Moreover, according to Industry 4.0 principles, it is also possible to talk about smart retrofitting, involving the integration of various technologies such as sensors, automation systems, Digital Twins, artificial intelligence and data analytics software to control and optimise the operation of the machinery. Digital Twins, in particular, have been widely used among smart retrofit solutions and can integrate several innovative aspects of dated systems. However, a literature review needs to clarify their meaning and specific characteristics. For this reason, this paper aims to distinguish different strategies and find a correct definition of smart retrofitting, highlighting its relevance, benefits and sustainability in the industrial sector, focusing more on Digital Twin solutions for smart retrofitting.

Value-based Smart Retrofitting of Maintenance in the Hydropower Plants of Celsia

Smart Retrofitting in maintenance indicates the development of maintenance services through the retrofitting of legacy devices with the functionalities of data collection, data communication and data processing. Many companies nowadays desire to retrofit their assets through the implementation of Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) services to assist in better predicting their future state and making timely and sound decisions. In this context, this work presents the PHM center developed by the company Celsia in the Alto Anchicayá hydropower plant and discusses the available approaches for estimating the value brought by PHM investments. Even if different works can be found in the literature with this purpose, only the economic feasibility of PHM implementations is generally considered. Whereas, in value-based decision-making different dimensions are embraced and not only the performance and cost ones. Therefore, the need of a value model to support decision-making concerning PHM implementations is presented and the potential of System Dynamics for this purpose is discussed.

Demonstration Laboratory of Industry 4.0 Retrofitting and Operator 4.0 Solutions: Education towards Industry 5.0.

One of the main challenges of Industry 4.0 is how advanced sensors and sensing technologies can be applied through the Internet of Things layers of existing manufacturing. This is the so-called Brownfield Industry 4.0, where the different types and ages of machines and processes need to be digitalized. Smart retrofitting is the umbrella term for solutions to show how we can digitalize manufacturing machines. This problem is critical in the case of solutions to support human workers. The Operator 4.0 concept shows how we can efficiently support workers on the shop floor. The key indicator is the readiness level of a company, and the main bottleneck is the technical knowledge of the employees. This study proposes an education framework and a related Operator 4.0 laboratory that prepares students for the development and application of Industry 5.0 technologies. The concept of intelligent space is proposed as a basis of the educational framework, which can solve the problem of monitoring the stochastic nature of operators in production processes. The components of the intelligent space are detailed through the layers of the IoT in the form of a case study conducted at the laboratory. The applicability of indoor positioning systems is described with the integration of machine-, operator- and environment-based sensor data to obtain real-time information from the shop floor. The digital twin of the laboratory is developed in a discrete event simulator, which integrates the data from the shop floor and can control the production based on the simulation results. The presented framework can be utilized to design education for the generation of Industry 5.0.

A treatise on retrofitting of hydro-turbine materials

Hydro-turbine materials endure frequently the detrimental losses on account of slurry or silt erosion, cavitation erosion, corrosion or the collaborative effects of any of their combinations. Rivers emanating from Himalayan region or other hilly areas generally flow with enormous quantity of silt of different sizes and shapes. The shape of slurry particles possesses its wide ranges from sharp angular having very high erosion potential to spherical ones of relatively less erosion capacity. These particles sometimes create very severe damage in the form of huge mass loss and development of cracks within the short span of time in the components or parts of turbines in hydropower plants, situated in these regions for electricity generation. To avoid the extensive monetary loss in replacing the harshly eroded or cracked turbine parts, retrofitting (repair & maintenance) of hydro-turbine materials is mostly preferred for enhancing the service life and the smooth and efficient functioning of the concerned industries, responsible for power genesis. Common practice of retrofitting has been elaborated and discussed on the basis of a local cum private industry visit and subsequently, apt and proper optimized parameters related to different retrofitting operations; preheating, welding and post weld heat treatment (PWHT) have been suggested to meet the intended outcomes. Challenges found in execution of retrofitting the turbine parts also have been discussed. Retrofitting of eroded turbine parts has been advised rather to exhaust unnecessary monetary investment in their substitutions. In this brief study and in view of paucity of research availability as being an unorganized sector, retrofitting of hydro-turbine parts are focused, reviewed and discussed alongwith its underlying process. Some reviews in retrofitting prospect of components or parts of turbines other than hydro-turbines also have been considered for representing its approach for repair & maintenance. Additionally, smart retrofitting in accordance to the Industry 4.0 line has been suggested for further reduction in cost to money and time.

Smart retrofitting of buildings: a bibliometric study

Smart Building (SB)s have gained significant attention over the past decade. This is mainly because of the performance and efficiency enhancements that smart features can enable a building system to achieve, for example, net-zero energy consumption, operational savings, state-of-the-science user-friendliness, safety and security. Nowadays, many new buildings are being designed with smart features. The ‘grand challenge’, however, is converting the existing, ordinary buildings into SBs, through a process called “smart retrofitting (SR)”. This process, while affecting the existing building components and the end-users, is challenging to the relevant facilities managers. As strengthening the SR knowledge base will enable better-informed, hence more effective decisions, the focus of this research is to undertake a bibliometric analysis of SR research to assess its development in terms of prominent authors, countries and organisations. The bibliometric searches were conducted on the ‘Scopus’ and ‘Web of Science’ databases. A total of 107 journal articles were identified and analysed using the “VOSviewer” software. The findings revealed: the co-authorship patterns; the connections among the most influential authors, countries, and organisations; and the weak collaboration among the authors and organisations. This study is the first bibliometric analysis on SR, the results of which not only serve as a useful reference for both researchers and practitioners but also signpost further works to be undertaken for complementing the current results.

Residents’ Perceptions of a Smart Technology Retrofit Towards Nearly Zero-Energy Performance

Coping with global climate challenges requires changes in both individual practices and the technical infrastructure in which people operate. Retrofitting existing buildings with smart and sustainable technologies shows the potential in reducing the environmental impacts of the housing sector and improving the quality of life for residents. However, the efficiency of these means depends on their individual and societal acceptance. This calls for the need to incorporate social practice theories into the discussion of smart cities and technology adoption. This study aims to understand how smart retrofit intervention in an extensive pioneering smart city project in Estonia is perceived among the residents with different dispositions towards the environment and technology in an early phase of the intervention. We interviewed the residents of 18 Soviet-era apartment buildings which underwent a complete retrofit into nearly zero-energy buildings equipped with smart technologies. The results showed that pro-technology residents expressed high interest and trust towards smart retrofit intervention, while residents with environmentally inclined dispositions conveyed more critical arguments. This indicates that individuals’ underlying dispositions may result in different social practices and that a diverse set of engagement approaches are crucial for the success and social acceptance of large-scale pioneering projects in the housing sector.

XWare: a Middleware for Smart Retrofitting in Maintenance

The management of industrial maintenance has rapidly evolved in the past few decades. Thanks to the advancements of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) brought by Industry 4.0, the present and future health state of machines can be estimated and, as a result, smart maintenance based on real-time sensor data has emerged. One way to implement CPSs in an enterprise is through smart retrofitting: the integration of new technologies into legacy devices to enable CPS capabilities. Among these capabilities, communication involves the integration, translation and transmission of data from legacy devices to external applications. In this work, XWare (eXperimental middleWare) is proposed as a low-cost middleware for smart maintenance applications that eases the implementation of the communication capability into legacy devices. This implementation is enabled through the integration of various open-source technologies: MQTT, OM2M, and a custom-made library of Python functions. The integration of these components allows sensors placed on different locations to transmit maintenance-related data to a local server through the use of gateways. By methodically designing, implementing and verifying XWare, a scalable, easy to deploy, and open-source middleware for smart retrofitting in maintenance was developed.

Machine Tool Transition from Industry 3.0 to 4.0: A Comparison between Old Machine Retrofitting and the Purchase of New Machines from a Triple Bottom Line Perspective

The emerging scenario designed by digital technologies connected to Industry 4.0 is pushing towards increasingly sustainable companies. Access to the multiple benefits of digitalization (such as increased productivity, flexibility, efficiency, quality, lower consumption of resources, and the improvement of worker safety) is possible by purchasing new-generation machinery. However, thanks to smart retrofitting processes, companies can extend the shelf life of machinery without replacing it entirely. This work aims to present a framework to assess the sustainability of implementing a smart retrofitting process in old machines as an alternative to replacement from a triple bottom line (economic, environmental, and social) perspective. Due to the multidimensional and multidisciplinary variables that the proposed framework must consider, a multicriteria decision-making process is developed to identify the best transition solution from Industry 3.0 to 4.0. Then, we analyze a case study in which, thanks to the previously proposed methodology, two types of smart retrofitting on a column drill are compared with three replacement options for the same machine tool. In conclusion, the case study shows that retrofitting in the context of Industry 4.0 (or smart retrofitting), despite its high acquisition cost, is the best solution in terms of sustainability, and that this is because the smart retrofitting solution not only positively influences all parameters of digitization but also has a strong impact on the safety criterion.

Association between home insulation and hospital admission rates: retrospective cohort study using linked data from a national intervention programme

ObjectivesTo investigate whether retrofitting insulation into homes can reduce cold associated hospital admission rates among residents and to identify whether the effect varies between different groups within the population and...

Monitoring and control of energy consumption in buildings using WoT: A novel approach for smart retrofit

Interoperability issues on networks of heterogeneous devices create a relevant and complex challenge. The Word Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops a series of specifications, called the Web of Things (WoT), to address this challenge. WoT is focused on integrating smart things into the application layer of a system using on Web technologies. Thus, WoT is expected to have a great impact on the smart retrofit of buildings once data from existing and future planned systems are able to be gathered and analysed seamlessly. In this paper, we (i) analyse the application of the W3C WoT on the core of the Building Energy Management System (BEMS) to enable the universal integration of both private and public systems; (ii) propose a novel architecture for the BEMS based on the W3C specifications; and (iii) present a real-world application based on this architecture. The application covered in this paper allows data gathering from sensors with standard commands, enabling data analysis with a simple collecting process. By applying these specifications, smart building retrofit can be benefited from: (i) the ability to merge and scale different systems and devices; (ii) the easiness to access data; (iii) the reduction of development and maintenance costs; and (iv) offering standard interfaces to the BEMS.

Smart retrofitting of irregular steel joints in traditional Chinese buildings by viscous dampers

Ancient Chinese architecture is characterized by its unique appearance and exhibits high standards in terms of structural and artistic aspects. Most of these buildings were constructed with wood, which is expensive to maintain. Given the urgent requirement to preserve and pass on the historical architectural heritage, traditional Chinese buildings (TCBs) are being constructed using modern fabrication techniques and building materials that imitate the shape and appearance of ancient Chinese timber structures. To prevent premature failure and increase the strength of the irregular joints in TCBs, viscous dampers are attached to retrofit these irregular steel joints, instead of containing the relatively weak Dou-Gong (a unique component in TCBs). Four newly proposed 1/2.66-scale joint specimens with viscous dampers were fabricated and tested under fast dynamic periodic loads, and two other counterparts without dampers were tested for comparison. The influence of the damping coefficients of the viscous dampers on the dynamic performance of retrofitted irregular joints (including single beam-column joints and double beam-column joints) was assessed by their hysteretic behavior, strength, ductility, energy dissipation capacity, and stiffness degradation. The test results showed that the plastic hinge region moved outwards after the dampers were installed. The existence of dampers increased the strength of the irregular joints by 14.4%-41.7%. However, low ductility was exhibited by the irregular steel joints regardless of the installation of dampers, indicating that an appropriate design should be ensured for these joints to improve the damper function. A refined finite element (FE) model was developed based on the experiments, and the optimized installation configurations of dampers for irregular steel joints in TCBs, that is, the length and installation angle of dampers, were discussed. The proposed retrofitting method has been proved to be effective for reinforcing irregular steel joints in TCBs.

Smart retrofitting of machine tools in the context of industry 4.0

This paper aims to show a way to use augmented reality to retrofit a production machine. Augmented reality is implemented using Microsoft HoloLens. In a case study, a way was researched how to help the machine user to do the right things in the right sequence in order to save time and cost. Sometimes the sequences in a setup process are not clearly structured. With the help of HoloLens, the user gets a kind of navigation system. This navigation system can also be edited to retrofit a production machine where a user manual is not more available.

Smart Retrofit Solutions of Buildings toward a Low Carbon World

Smart Retrofit Solutions of Buildings toward a Low Carbon World

Smart Retrofit Solutions of Buildings toward a Low Carbon World

In this short communication, energy-efficient, eco-friendly and low-cost solutions for existing buildings are considered in a holistic manner toward low/zero carbon building concept of near future. Buildings are still responsible for about 40% of total primary energy consumption in the world, hence decisive measures need to be taken promptly due to growing significance of environmental issues driven by fossil fuel based energy use. Smart solutions addressed within the scope of this research aim at analyzing the energy consumption behaviour of a typical building from building envelope to the appliances utilised, then propose key technologies for urgent mitigation of energy use and drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. For the external walls, aerogel and vacuum insulation panel based thermal superinsulation solutions are recommended owing to the superior thermal resistance ability of such materials (λ<0.01 W/mK for current commercial products). For glazed areas, aerogel glazing, vacuum glazing, solar pond glazing, PV glazing, Transparent Insulation Material (TIM) glazing and Phase Change Material (PCM) glazing concepts are introduced. About 60% of total heat losses from building fabric is attributed to window, which proves the significance of energy-efficient solutions on fenestration products. Depending on environmental and regional conditions, solar, wind and biomass oriented hybrid solutions can be considered for clean energy generation. Current payback period of such systems is below five years, which is promising. Especially thermally resistive PV glazing systems integrated with TiO2 nano coating are capable of producing more than 100 W from per m2 28 of cell area with 100% UV light blockage and self-cleaning feature. Polycarbonate based counter flow waste heat recovery systems are ideal for ventilation purposes with an average COP of about 3.5. For general heating and cooling purposes, air or ground source heat pump systems are found to be favourable for temperate and continental climatic conditions, respectively. Average COP of these systems is found to be greater than 3 in most cases, which is attractive. LED lighting systems are highly energy-efficient and cost-effective compared to the alternatives in market.