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A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "G: Energy and Buildings".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 March 2024) | Viewed by 5399

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Natale Arcuri

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Guest Editor

Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering, University of Calabria, 87036 Cosenza, Italy
Interests: energy system optimization for building application; energy flows management in smart-grids; cognitive buildings; solar energy modelling; building energy demand reduction; thermal characterization of materials; energy regulations
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Prof. Roberto Bruno

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Guest Editor

Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering, Università della Calabria, 87036 Cosenza, Italy
Interests: thermal analysis of building components using a climatic chamber; passive systems in buildings to reduce thermal energy requirements; measurement of climatic quantities; net- and near-zero-energy buildings; double-skin systems in existing buildings; innovative technologies for building air conditioning; solar cooling; innovative photovoltaic generators; cogenerative and trigenerative photovoltaic systems; high-efficiency and variable-flow air conditioning systems; models for the intelligent management of building-plant systems with cognitive algorithms; back cooling of PV systems; innovative thermal storage systems; green roofs; heat pumps combined with active solar systems; energy recovery from the LNG regasification process; biofuel production from intensive production of microalgae within photo-bioreactors
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Dr. Piero Bevilacqua

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Guest Editor

Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende, Italy
Interests: green roofs; green solutions; energy saving in buildings; photovoltaic systems; innovative air-conditioning systems; dynamic simulation of buildings and plants; experimental analysis of thermal properties
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Guest Editor is inviting submissions to a Special Issue of Energies on the subject area of “Efficient Low Carbon Buildings and Districts”.

Recent efforts promulgated by communitarian and national legislations to provide more sustainable development strategies strongly affect the construction sector, widely acknowledged to be a major player in the world primary energy consumption and CO₂emission.

The building sector has strongly focused, on one hand, on the research and development of more efficient and performant building envelope solutions, and on the other hand, on the improvement of air-conditioning plants with a strong propulsion toward the use of renewable sources.

At present, it is more than indispensable to approach the building design and operation in a more holistic way, considering the essential and fundamental building–plant interaction. Recent advancements in this sector have proposed innovative air-conditioning solutions that combine several energy sources and allow rationally managing and controlling building energy requirements and use. Furthermore, the recent attention and shift toward a smart grid concept, where management of production and consumption of electricity among prosumers is essential, requires maximum exploitation of renewable energy sources. A similar prospect seems even more important considering recent European regulations that compel the sole construction of nearly zero energy buildings (nZEB). Buildings will therefore necessarily have to take part in the management of smart grids, on the base of the communication with the grid manager, applying strategies of demand-side management (DSM).

This Special Issue will deal with topics related to modeling and simulation of innovative building–plant configurations, with the aim to reach low carbon building with zero or positive energy demand in single buildings, districts and energy communities. Experimental analysis of real case applications will also provide useful and interesting insight into the energy performance of proposed systems and solutions.

Topics of interest for publication include but are not limited to:

Building energy demand reduction;
Zero and positive energy districts;
Passive systems for the building envelope;
Demand-side management (DSM) for building energy use optimization;
Solar-assisted heat pump to increase renewable use in buildings;
Smart air conditioning plant for building energy minimization;
Hybrid plants based on renewable sources;
Energy storage system for building application.

Prof. Dr. Natale Arcuri
Prof. Roberto Bruno
Dr. Piero Bevilacqua
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Passive systems
Energy savings
Energy storage system
Renewable energy
Demand-side management (DSM)
Smart grids
Energy districts
Air-conditioning plant
nZEB
Building envelope
Energy demand

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 6153 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Investigating Advanced Building Envelopes for Energy Efficiency in Prefab Temporary Post-Disaster Housing

by Lorenzo Rapone, Afaq A. Butt, Roel C. G. M. Loonen, Giacomo Salvadori and Francesco Leccese

Energies 2024, 17(9), 2008; https://doi.org/10.3390/en17092008 - 24 Apr 2024

Viewed by 286

Abstract

Prefabricated temporary buildings are a promising solution for post-disaster scenarios for their modularity, sustainability and transportation advantages. However, their low thermal mass building envelope shows a fast response to heat flux excitations. This leads to the risk of not meeting the occupant comfort and HVAC energy-saving requirements. The literature shows different measures implementable in opaque surfaces, like vacuum insulation panels (VIPs), phase change materials (PCMs) and switchable coatings, and in transparent surfaces (switchable glazing) to mitigate thermal issues, like overheating, while preserving the limited available internal space. This paper investigates the energy and overheating performance of the mentioned interventions by using building performance simulation tools to assess their effectiveness. The optimization also looks at the transportation flexibility of each intervention to better support the decision maker for manufacturing innovative temporary units. The most energy-efficient measures turn to be VIPs as a better energy solution for winter and PCMs as a better thermal comfort solution for summer. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Efficient Low Carbon Buildings and Districts)

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29 pages, 11098 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Demand Side Management Based Power-to-Heat and Power-to-Gas Optimization Strategies for PV and Wind Self-Consumption in a Residential Building Cluster

by Marcus Brennenstuhl, Daniel Lust, Dirk Pietruschka and Dietrich Schneider

Energies 2021, 14(20), 6712; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14206712 - 15 Oct 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1695

Abstract

The volatility of renewable energy sources (RES) poses a growing problem for operation of electricity grids. In contrary, the necessary decarbonisation of sectors such as heat supply and transport requires a rapid expansion of RES. Load management in the context of power-to-heat systems can help to simultaneously couple the electricity and heat sectors and stabilise the electricity grid, thus enabling a higher share of RES. In addition power-to-hydrogen offers the possibility of long-term energy storage options. Within this work, we present a novel optimization approach for heat pump operation with the aim to counteract the volatility and enable a higher usage of RES. For this purpose, a detailed simulation model of buildings and their energy supply systems is created, calibrated and validated based on a plus energy settlement. Subsequently, the potential of optimized operation is determined with regard to PV and small wind turbine self-consumption. In addition, the potential of seasonal hydrogen storage is examined. The results show, that on a daily basis a 33% reduction of electricity demand from grid is possible. However, the average optimization potential is reduced significantly by prediction inaccuracy. The addition of a hydrogen system for seasonal energy storage basically eliminates the carbon dioxide emissions of the cluster. However, this comes at high carbon dioxide prevention costs of

1.76

€

k g

⁻¹. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Efficient Low Carbon Buildings and Districts)

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18 pages, 4102 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Efficiency Improvement of Photovoltaic Modules via Back Surface Cooling

by Piero Bevilacqua, Stefania Perrella, Daniela Cirone, Roberto Bruno and Natale Arcuri

Energies 2021, 14(4), 895; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14040895 - 9 Feb 2021

Cited by 29 | Viewed by 2517

Abstract

Crystalline silicon photovoltaics are a cardinal and well-consolidated technology for the achievement of energy efficiency goals, being installed worldwide for the production of clean electrical energy. However, their performance is strongly penalized by the thermal drift, mostly in periods of high solar radiation where solar cells reach considerably high temperatures. To limit this aspect, the employment of cooling systems appears a promising and viable solution. For this purpose, four different cooling systems, working on the photovoltaic (PV) panel back surface, were proposed and investigated in an experimental set-up located at the University of Calabria (Italy). Hourly electrical output power and efficiency were provided accounting for different meteorological conditions in several months of the experimental campaign. The results demonstrated that a simple spray cooling technique can provide an absolute increment of electrical efficiency of up to 1.6% and an average percentage increment of daily energy of up to 8% in hot months. More complex systems, based on ventilation or combining spray cooling and ventilation, were demonstrated not to be a viable option for PV performance improvement. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Efficient Low Carbon Buildings and Districts)

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