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Energy retrofit of commercial buildings: case study and applied methodology

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Abstract

Commercial buildings are responsible for a significant share of the energy requirements of European Union countries. Related consumptions due to heating, cooling, and lighting appear, in most cases, very high and expensive. Since the real estate is renewed with a very small percentage each year and current trends suggest reusing the old structures, strategies for improving energy efficiency and sustainability should focus not only on new buildings, but also and especially on existing ones. Architectural renovation of existing buildings could provide an opportunity to enhance their energy efficiency, by working on the improvement of envelopes and energy supply systems. It has also to be noted that the measures aimed to improve the energy performance of buildings should pay particular attention to the cost-effectiveness of the interventions. In general, there is a lack of well-established methods for retrofitting, but if a case study achieves effective results, the adopted strategies and methodologies can be successfully replicated for similar kinds of buildings. In this paper, an iterative methodology for energy retrofit of commercial buildings is presented, together with a specific application on an existing office building. The case study is particularly significant as it is placed in an urban climatic context characterized by cold winters and hot summers; consequently, HVAC energy consumption is considerable throughout the year. The analysis and simulations of energy performance before and after the intervention, along with measured data on real energy performance, demonstrate the validity of the applied approach. The specifically developed design and refurbishment methodology, presented in this work, could be also assumed as a reference in similar operations.

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Notes

  1. During 2005, the data center of the company was outsourced, consequently reducing total electricity demand. This change, which can be noted in Table 4, does not influence obtained results as long as all comparisons carried out in the present work were made on data collected after 2005.

  2. An electrical to primary energy conversion factor equal to 2.16 is considered, according to the data delivered by the Italian Energy Authority.

Abbreviations

DD:

Degree day

HDD20 :

Annual heating degree days with a reference temperature of 20 °C

CDD20 :

Annual cooling degree days with a reference temperature of 20 °C

BIPV:

Building-integrated photovoltaics

GSHP:

Ground source heat pump

ERM:

Energy retrofit measure

DHW:

Domestic hot water

U :

Thermal transmittance under steady-state boundary conditions, in watts per square meter per kelvin

M f :

Frontal mass, in kilograms per square meter

O p :

Operating period, in hours

O r :

Operating rate, in percentage

N pr :

Nominal power rate, in kilowatts

OAT:

One factor at a time

T NP :

Daily nominal power utilization period, in hours

E n :

Total energy needed by a specific appliance’s category (e.g., lights), in kilowatt hours

P tot,n :

Total nominal electric power for each appliance’s category, in kilowatts

T NP,n :

Daily nominal power utilization period, in hours

NPV:

Net present value, in €

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Arch. Mario Butera for energy simulations support, Prof. R.S. Adhikari for useful discussions and valuable insights while carrying out the present work, Dr. Marco Arisi Rota for his kind financial consultancy, and Mr. Paolo Bassani and Mr. Allessando Dallaglio (ERGO Italia) for kind assistance on data collection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Building Environment Science and Technology (BEST), Politecnico di Milano, Via Bonardi 3, 20133, Milan, Italy

    Niccolò Aste & Claudio Del Pero

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  1. Niccolò Aste
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  2. Claudio Del Pero
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Correspondence to Niccolò Aste.

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Aste, N., Del Pero, C. Energy retrofit of commercial buildings: case study and applied methodology. Energy Efficiency 6, 407–423 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-012-9168-4

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