University energy planning for reducing energy consumption and GHG emissions: the case study of a university campus in Italy

Abstract

Reduction of energy consumption in educational buildings, and primarily in University buildings, is nowadays a relevant issue. The evaluation of the energy performance of these buildings is complex due to the variability in their construction age and their intermittent and wide variety of uses. In addition, these buildings are often characterized by a scarce availability of energy end use data, which makes challenging to benchmark energy performance and to inform energy policy decisions. To tackle this problem, this paper explores the use of simple indicators linking low-frequency available energy consumption data to variables measuring building characteristics and weather conditions. The use of such indicators is accompanied by detailed ad-hoc energy audits, including activities in the area of building management systems and dynamic energy simulation. The case study chosen is the Italian University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, which recently developed a Sustainability Plan targeting reductions in GHG emissions to 2020 and identified a framework for investment over the next 5 years to meet University targets. The results of the study shows that simple performance indicators can provide a first insight into the buildings energy performance and identify critical buildings that require detailed analysis. The results of the energy audits support the decision of actions to reduce heating and cooling energy consumption while maintaining acceptable thermal comfort for occupants.

Universidades e as dimensões da sustentabilidade: econômica, social e ambiental, uma revisão bibliográfica

“…Considerando a dimensão ambiental foi a mais representada nos estudos analisados (n=17/42,5%), seguida da dimensão econômica (n=12/30%) e da social (n = 11/27,5%). (Ku et al, 2011) N M P UKM, Malásia (Mamat et al, 2015) M M P Três Universidades de Metro Manila, Filipinas (Su, 2015) P N N Universidade de Diponegoro, Indonésia (Ulkhaq, 2018) N N M EUROPEU University of Modena and Reggio Emilia -Itália (Lodi et al, 2017) N N P University of Madrid, Carlos III University e University of Castilla-La Mancha, Espanha (Romero et al, 2017) P P P Universidade de Barcelona Universidade Pompeu Fabra -Espanha (Beguia et al, 2018) P P P Politecnico di Torino, Itália (Sonetti et al, 2016) N P P Private Higher Education Institutions, Letônia (Cernostana, 2018) P N N Universities in the Spain, Espanha (Murga-Menoy, 2014) P M M Universidade de Educação de Freiburg, Alemanha (Waltner, 2018) P P P Universidade de Ciências Aplicadas Amberg-Weiden, Alemanha (Herzner et al, 2020) N P P *Indicador -P: está presente; M: menciona; N: não há indicação.…”

“…Dentre os indicadores da dimensão ambiental destaca-se o número de estudos que abordaram as questões energéticas (ALSHUWAIKHAT et al, 2017;LODI et al, 2017, SHRILBERG, 2002SONETTI et al, 2016).…”

Air Conditioning System Performance of a City Hotel Appraised for Energy Use Efficiency

“…The appraisal was conducted to building envelope, AC system description including user practices, annual electricity consumption associated with cooling zones. The appraisal also provides possibility to determine potential improvements in reducing energy consumption [47,48]. By discovering energy saving potentials, it can help use energy more efficiently in city hotel buildings and reduce CO2 emissions to the environment for sustainable development.…”

Dynamic Analysis of the Role of Thermal Inertia in the Heating System Control of Historical and Monumental Buildings

“…To properly design and operate such buildings, a number of parameters which characterize most of historic institutional buildings, such as large thermal inertia and intermittent and variable usage, should be taken into account [10][11][12][13]28]. Different studies can be found in the literature on procedures to assess and model the energy performance of historic buildings [7,[14][15][16].…”