Gabriele Battista

Buildings Energy Efficiency: Interventions Analysis under a Smart Cities Approach

Most of the world’s population lives in urban areas and in inefficient buildings under the energy point of view. Starting from these assumptions, there is the need to identify methodologies and innovations able to improve social development and the quality of life of people living in cities. Smart cities can be a viable solution. The methodology traditionally adopted to evaluate building energy efficiency starts from the structure’s energy demands analysis and the demands reduction evaluation. Consequently, the energy savings is assessed through a cascade of interventions. Regarding the building envelope, the first intervention is usually related to the reduction of the thermal transmittance value, but there is also the need to emphasize the building energy savings through other parameters, such as the solar gain factor and dye solar absorbance coefficients. In this contribution, a standard building has been modeled by means of the well-known dynamic software, TRNSYS. This study shows a parametrical analysis through which it is possible to evaluate the effect of each single intervention and, consequently, its influence on the building energy demand. Through this analysis, an intervention chart has been carried out, aiming to assess the intervention efficiency starting from the percentage variation of energy demands.

Energy System Feasibility of a High Efficient Building

World population is steadily increasing and it is estimated to reach 9 billion in 2050. Moreover, 72% of people live in big cities and the buildings energy requirement is growing, reaching the 45% of the total energy amount.This paper presents of a building energy efficient properly designed to realize a solar-powered house that is cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The study applied a methodology which is able to identify the best building plant configuration under a technical, economical and environmental point of view. It has been demonstrated that the proposed plant allows to reduce the fossil fuels consumption compared to a plant conventionally employed, with a proportional reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions of about 30% per year.

Influence of Shading and Transparent Surfaces on Historical Building Energy Retrofit

This study aims to assess the influence of greenery shading and transparent surfaces on historical building’s energy demand under a retrofit point of view. To achieve this goal, the energy requirement of the whole building has been considered. In order to improve buildings energy efficiency several simulations have been performed. In particular, the effects of some interventions related to different windowed elements, characterized by progressively improved thermal properties, have been taken into account.

Energy Retrofit of Historical Buildings Based on Windowed Elements

The study of the building energy performance is based on simplified procedures that estimates the energy demand using monthly values of environmental parameters. It is well known that it is possible to use advanced dynamic softwares able to analyze the real building’s behavior along time. For this reason in this study a historical building energy retrofit has been performed through a dynamic software considering the influence of different kind of windowed elements on the annual energy demand. Four simulations, taking into account transparent elements characterized by progressively improved properties of thermal transmittance and solar gain factor, have been performed. The results obtained have been analyzed and compared.

Predictive Models for Evaluating Mobility Buses Thermal Performance

Every day, in every city, many buses are moving, carrying a lot of citizens. During the year, especially during the summer, buses become uncomfortable places because of both environmental and internal conditions. Due to the rising of the mobility needs, time that people spend in vehicles has strongly grown. Moreover, also the thermal environment in urban buses changes greatly, in fact passengers onboard are exposed to local heating and/or cooling due to vertical temperature gradients, radiant asymmetry and local unexpected airflow. This study aims to optimize the energy performance of a bus envelope, identifying practical solutions. The analysis was carried out numerically, considering a hot day during July and passengers on board during the 24 hours per day.