Ricerc@Sapienza

Future Energy Systems in midsized Italian Smart Cities are highly dependent upon the pursuit of a smarter grid based on active end-user engagement, the use of distributed energy resources and real-time demand response. In Trento, due to its climatic conditions, the issue of smart energy systems is particularly relevant and its future smart electric grid is expected to produce energy efficiency improvements to the city’s historic municipal buildings, as well as to private residences and businesses.

The growing penetration of non-programmable energy sources will largely contribute to intensify the renewable capacity firming issues. Providing a higher systems flexibility, i.e. the ability to match the supply and the demand sides as much as possible, is the main challenge to cope with, by adopting new energy planning paradigms. In this framework, different combined strategies, aiming at efficiently integrating that large amount of variable RES (VRES), have to be implemented.

The European Union, through the Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD), has recently set the minimum requirements in order to reduce the energy consumption of existing buildings and achieving nearly zero energy buildings (NZEBs). In order to comply with these requirements different aspects of the building sector have to be dealt with.