Analysis of energy performance improvements in Italian residential buildings

Residential buildings represent the major energy consumers in Italy, it is therefore worthwhile to analyze existing buildings highlighting the best technologies, strategies and interventions for improving their energy efficiency. In this context, this research gives particular attention to energy requirements related to winter heating, assessing the current energy demand of a building prototype having structural and plant standards assumed. Starting from the obtained energy efficiency data of the same building prototype in ten Italian pilot cities with different climate conditions and different wall structures, the aim of the paper is to assess the economic costs and the benefits in terms of optimization of the building energy performance indicator in the heating season (EPH in kWh/m2 year) for the most common renovation interventions, in order to get a cost /benefits analysis for each intervention in each city. Therefore the paper provides data to establish a hierarchy of priorities regarding possible interventions on building envelope or plants. The proposed energy requalification interventions have been defined considering the use of standard packages of the vertical and horizontal structures of the envelope as well as the application of new plant technologies. In particular, the parameters used for the characteristics of the interventions have been selected following the specified UNI-TS 11300 1-2008 and schedules provided by the Italian Thermo-Technical Committee (CTI). The obtained results could be useful to highlight the most convenient solutions for improving energy efficiency for each analyzed Italian city.