Ricerc@Sapienza

In this paper four different detailed models of pipelines are proposed and compared to assess the thermal losses in small-scale concentrated solar combined heat and power plants. Indeed, previous numerical analyses carried out by some of the authors have revealed the high impact of pipelines on the performance of these plants because of their thermal inertia. Hence, in this work the proposed models are firstly compared to each other for varying temperature increase and mass flow rate.

The energy refurbishment of the existing building heritage is one of the pillars of Italian energy policy. Aiming for energy efficiency and energy saving in end uses, there are wide and diversified improvement strategies, which include interventions on the building envelope and Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems, with the introduction of renewable energy sources. The research aims at evaluating the building energy consumptions and Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), varying the airflow rates handled by the HVAC system.

Energy reduction can benefit from the improvement of energy efficiency in buildings. For this purpose, simulation models can be used both as diagnostic and prognostic tools, reproducing the behaviour of the real building as accurately as possible. High modelling accuracy can be achieved only through calibration. Two approaches can be adopted-manual or automatic. Manual calibration consists of an iterative trial and error procedure that requires high skill and expertise of the modeler.

Nowadays, as the role of energy retrofit on the existing building stock is recognized towards energy savings and emissions’ reductions, the actions to be undertaken towards this aim require complex decisions, in terms of the choice among active and passive strategies and among often conflicting objectives of the retrofit. Depending on the actor of the retrofit (e.g., private, public), the main objective could be minimizing the investment, minimizing the energy demand or cost, or minimizing emissions.