Energy security is one of the most important challenges Jordan is currently facing, as it imports 96% of its energy resources from foreign countries. Together with other sectors, the existing building stock is responsible for high energy... more
Energy security is one of the most important challenges Jordan is currently facing, as it imports 96% of its energy resources from foreign countries. Together with other sectors, the existing building stock is responsible for high energy consumption, as average energy performance levels are much lower than the standards prescribed in the recent Jordanian Energy Efficient Building Code. Addressing issues related to energy retrofitting will assist the country to develop effective plans to reduce the energy consumption of buildings and, therefore, decrease the associated energy costs on a large scale, thus helping Jordan’s sustainable development. This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the current situation of the building sector and the energy performance of existing buildings in Amman, identifying issues, obstacles and opportunities to be considered for retrofitting this stock. The paper also provides a critical reflection on interviews with six local experts in the fie...
Energy Efficiency (EE) has become a common target for all buildings: the European Directive 2010/31 specifies that every new building must consume very little fossil energy (Nearly Zero Energy Building) by 2020; this deadline for public... more
Energy Efficiency (EE) has become a common target for all buildings: the European Directive 2010/31 specifies that every new building must consume very little fossil energy (Nearly Zero Energy Building) by 2020; this deadline for public buildings is fixed by the end of 2018. However, modify the existing heritage is not easy. This is particularly true for historical public buildings belonging to the cultural heritage, because many energy solutions in the field of renovation are not compatible with historic constructions, which need to preserve authenticity and integrity. The paper discusses this critical issue by using a particular building in Italy: analysis, diagnosis and energy audits have been developed for the case study of the School of Engineering in Bologna, a representative building in the history of modern construction. Results of the microclimate monitoring campaign in different classrooms show how the lack of thermal control, together with poorly insulated envelopes' components, determine high energy consumption. Selected modifications with a minimum impact have been considered for the energy retrofit. Results show a potential energy saving up to 32%, demonstrating how energy saving in historical buildings may be achieved by means of limited and non-invasive interventions on physical and material processes.
The hygrothermal behaviour of an internally insulated historic wall is still hard to predict, mainly because the physical characteristics of the materials composing the historic wall are unknown. In this study, the hygrothermal assessment... more
The hygrothermal behaviour of an internally insulated historic wall is still hard to predict, mainly because the physical characteristics of the materials composing the historic wall are unknown. In this study, the hygrothermal assessment of an internally thermal insulated masonry wall of an historic palace located in Ferrara, in Italy, is shown. In situ non-destructive monitoring method is combined with a hygrothermal simulation tool, aiming to better analyse and discuss future refurbishment scenarios. In this context, the original U-value of the wall (not refurbished) is decreased from 1.44 W/m 2 K to 0.26 W/m 2 K (10 cm stone wool). Under the site specific conditions of this wall, not reached by the sun or rain, it was verified that even in the absence of vapour barrier, no frost damage is likely to occur and the condensation risk is very limited. Authors proposed further discussion based on simulation. The results showed that the introduction of a second gypsum board to the studied technology compensated such absence, while the reduction of the insulation material thickness provides a reduction of RH peaks in the interstitial area by 1%; this second solution proved to be more efficient, providing a 3% RH reduction and the avoidance of further thermal losses.
Energy security is one of the most important challenges Jordan is currently facing, as it imports 96% of its energy resources from foreign countries. Together with other sectors, the existing building stock is responsible for high energy... more
Energy security is one of the most important challenges Jordan is currently facing, as it imports 96% of its energy resources from foreign countries. Together with other sectors, the existing building stock is responsible for high energy consumption, as average energy performance levels are much lower than the standards prescribed in the recent Jordanian Energy Efficient Building Code. Addressing issues related to energy retrofitting will assist the country to develop effective plans to reduce the energy consumption of buildings and, therefore, decrease the associated energy costs on a large scale, thus helping Jordan’s sustainable development. This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the current situation of the building sector and the energy performance of existing buildings in Amman, identifying issues, obstacles and opportunities to be considered for retrofitting this stock. The paper also provides a critical reflection on interviews with six local experts in the fields of architecture and engineering, including governmental and non-governmental institutions, making recommendations and suggesting possible directions for future research.
In the context of functional and performance rehabilitation of existing heritage, internal envelope thermal insulation is often an inevitable option towards improvement of historic buildings' energy efficiency. Nonetheless, besides... more
In the context of functional and performance rehabilitation of existing heritage, internal envelope thermal insulation is often an inevitable option towards improvement of historic buildings' energy efficiency. Nonetheless, besides leading to the loss of useful floor area, this option may also lead to changes on the original hygrothermal behavior of such walls. Applied to a real case study, this paper presents the dynamic simulations assessment of a few thermal retrofitting materials, unveiling the significance of the proper choice of the materials in the software's' library (aiming at avoiding biased results) as well as reinforcing the importance of real in situ measurement for validation of such estimations, e.g. the HeLLo project. Index Terms-Energy efficiency, energy retrofit, historic building, hygrothermal simulation.
Comprehensive energy retrofits by households and housing companies have been recognised as important means for emission reductions. However, the diffusion of comprehensive energy retrofits has not been as fluent as expected. In this... more
Comprehensive energy retrofits by households and housing companies have been recognised as important means for emission reductions. However, the diffusion of comprehensive energy retrofits has not been as fluent as expected. In this article, we study the Finnish energy retrofit market and comprehensive energy retrofit acquisition process through participant observation and interview methods in order to better understand the work that housing companies, as potential adopters, must carry out. The results of our study suggest that to operate in the current market, adopters must expend a considerable amount of effort in finding market actors, understanding the offerings and coming to grips with what kind of energy system would be ideal for their site. Only a handful of market actors are able to help adopters in this work and even these were difficult to locate due to their position in the energy retrofit market ecology. The study indicates that future policy should foster matchmaking between potential adopters and energy counselling services and support tighter collaboration between public and private energy sector actors.
Energy retrofits in households are an important means of reducing energy consumption and mitigating climate change. However, energy retrofit rates have generally been lower than expected. As a key reason behind non-adoption, the... more
Energy retrofits in households are an important means of reducing energy consumption and mitigating climate change. However, energy retrofit rates have generally been lower than expected. As a key reason behind non-adoption, the complexity of energy retrofits can be challenging for adopters to handle. In this article, we study how suppliers and retrofit adopters seek to manage the complexity of an energy retrofit purchase. Using interview and mystery shopping data, the article analyses how the complexity is managed through a variety of complexity management devices (CMD) and complexity management strategies (CMS). We identify four complexity management devices, concretizations that help deal with energy retrofit complexity: characterisations, projections, comparisons and references. In addition, we identify four complexity management strategies for managing complexity: pre-exposure, choice simplification, outsourcing and championing. The contribution of the study is in highlighting the role of complexity management in energy retrofits and how CMDs and CMSs are involved in structuring energy retrofit offerings, business models and energy information. This, in turn, provides impetus for developing measures to ease the complexity of adoption.
The hygrothermal behaviour of an internally insulated historic wall is still hard to predict, mainly because the physical characteristics of the materials composing the historic wall are unknown. In this study, the hygrothermal assessment... more
The hygrothermal behaviour of an internally insulated historic wall is still hard to predict, mainly because the physical characteristics of the materials composing the historic wall are unknown. In this study, the hygrothermal assessment of an internally thermal insulated masonry wall of an historic palace located in Ferrara, in Italy, is shown. In situ non-destructive monitoring method is combined with a hygrothermal simulation tool, aiming to better analyse and discuss future refurbishment scenarios. In this context, the original U-value of the wall (not refurbished) is decreased from 1.44 W/m2K to 0.26 W/m2K (10 cm stone wool). Under the site specific conditions of this wall, not reached by the sun or rain, it was verified that even in the absence of vapour barrier, no frost damage is likely to occur and the condensation risk is very limited. Authors proposed further discussion based on simulation. The results showed that the introduction of a second gypsum board to the studied ...
In recent years, the European Union has developed a sustainable, competitive, safe, and "decarbonised" energy approach. To achieve this objective, especially in highly urbanized contexts, there is a need to drastically improve the energy... more
In recent years, the European Union has developed a sustainable, competitive, safe, and "decarbonised" energy approach. To achieve this objective, especially in highly urbanized contexts, there is a need to drastically improve the energy behavior of buildings and related energy systems. For this purpose, the aim of this paper is to analyse two very promising technologies that exploit the geothermal energy of the ground: the Earth-to-Air Heat eXchanger (EAHX) and the Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP). These two systems are used as an energy retrofit strategy for the air conditioning system in an existing single-family house, located in Naples (south Italy). The building and the related systems are dynamically simulated using the DesignBuilder software. The results show energy savings of these two systems (compared to a traditional solution with an air-to-water heat pump) between 13% and 28%, with a total yearly primary energy consumption of about 80 kWh/m 2 for the case with EAHX and around 67 kWh/m 2 for the case with GSHP.
This study explores the role of Energy Retrofit (ER) in Low Carbon Transition (LCT). The literature recognises the need to move towards a transdisciplinary approach in ER, which encompasses multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity.... more
This study explores the role of Energy Retrofit (ER) in Low Carbon Transition (LCT). The literature recognises the need to move towards a transdisciplinary approach in ER, which encompasses multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. However, the fragmentation between different disciplines remains a significant problem, mainly due to challenges associated with knowledge exchange across the allied disciplines that play a role in ER. The authors posit that ER projects has been conceptualised and implemented using a Systems perspective so that an integrated approach that is akin to transdisciplinarity could become commonplace. Against this background, the aim of this paper is to establish to what extent ER has been conceptualised as a System in the literature so that complexities can effectively be managed through a transdisciplinary approach. This work is based on a literature review of 136 peer-reviewed journal papers. The content analysis demonstrates that current research on transdisciplinarity in ER can be conceptualised in five categories and 15 lines of research. They are presented as a Conceptual Framework, which is this paper's main contribution to existing knowledge. It reveals the direction of innovation in ER for LCT, and is illustrated as a cognitive map. This map exposes the current fragmentation implicit in the literature, and proposes critical connections that need to be established for a transdisciplinary approach. It also shows that the discourse on LCT changed by moving beyond the building scale; and recognising the need to embrace disruptive and local technologies, and integrating the social and technical aspects of ER. Innovative technical solutions and robust information modelling approaches emerge as key vehicles towards making decisions that pay regard to the economic, social and technical factors and that empower the prosumers to play an active role in LCT.
