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Energy Efficiency and Comfort Indoor in Smart Buildings

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 7076

Special Issue Editors

Department of Civil, Energy, Environmental and Material Engineering (DICEAM), Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Reggio Calabria 89122, Italy
Interests: renewable energy sources; nearly Zero Energy Buildings; smart grid, building efficiency, innovative facade elements
Department of Civil, Energy, Environmental and Material Engineering (DICEAM), Infrastructure and Sustainable Energy, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Reggio Calabria 89122, Italy
Interests: solar energy; wind energy; energy storage; comfort indoor; building energy consumption

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is already conventional wisdom that energy use in edifices accounts for a large percentage of total energy consumption worldwide. Therefore, the transition towards low-carbon models of economy and society cannot avoid considering this important sector when both energy saving policies and emission reduction measures are designed and implemented.

However, in order to effectively reach this aim, buildings should be seen as part of a vast and articulate structure of interconnected systems which reciprocally interfere and which involve energy grids, generation from RES, energy storage and, of course, nearly Zero Energy Buildings. From this perspective, in the near future, a new sustainable and distributed energy paradigm should be established, involving all these themes.

The Special Issue "Energy Efficiency and Comfort Indoor in Smart Buildings” aims to gather high-quality papers addressing the above-mentioned topics with a particular interest in (although not limited to) methods of analysis, innovative approaches for energy performance assessment, technologies and best practices for building operation, monitoring, energy management systems and control techniques.

Dr. Concettina Marino
Dr. Antonino Nucara
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. Sustainability 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 2400 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

  • renewable energy sources
  • nearly Zero Energy Buildings
  • smart grid
  • solar energy
  • wind energy
  • energy storage, building efficiency, innovative facade elements
  • comfort indoor
  • building energy consumption

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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17 pages, 5493 KiB  
Article
Energy Evaluations of a New Plant Configuration for Solar-Assisted Heat Pumps in Cold Climates
by Stefania Perrella, Roberto Bruno, Piero Bevilacqua, Daniela Cirone and Natale Arcuri
Sustainability 2023, 15(2), 1663; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su15021663 - 14 Jan 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1382
Abstract
Heat pumps in buildings allow for the limiting of CO2 emissions by exploiting directly the renewable energy available in the external environment (aerothermal, hydrothermal and geothermal sources). Moreover, other renewable technologies such as active solar systems can be integrated easily into use [...] Read more.
Heat pumps in buildings allow for the limiting of CO2 emissions by exploiting directly the renewable energy available in the external environment (aerothermal, hydrothermal and geothermal sources). Moreover, other renewable technologies such as active solar systems can be integrated easily into use with them. This combination not only increases the share of primary energy provided by renewable sources for heating/cooling but also improves the heat pump performance indices. Nevertheless, in cold climates, air–water heat pumps should be equally penalized due to the unfavorable outdoor air temperature. Conversely, a water–water heat pump, connected with a solar tank and thermal solar collectors, overcomes this issue. Indeed, the higher temperature attainable in the cold source allows for reaching greater COPs, and when the solar tank temperature level is enough, emitters can be directly supplied, avoiding the absorption of electric energy. In this paper, this plant configuration, in which a further tank after the heat pump was considered to manage the produced thermal energy, is investigated. Proper control strategies have been developed to increase the renewable share. Regarding a reference residential building located in Milan, for which the water–water heat pump was sized properly, a parametric study, carried out in TRNSYS by varying solar tank volume and collecting surface, has allowed for the identification of the optimal system configuration. A renewable share, ranging between 54% and 61% as a function of the collecting surface and the storage volume, was detected, as was an average seasonal coefficient of performance (SCOP) over 4. Regarding two common heating plant configurations using an assisted PV air-to-water heat pump and a gas boiler, the optimal solution allows for the limiting of CO2 emissions by 33% and 53%, respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Efficiency and Comfort Indoor in Smart Buildings)
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17 pages, 14006 KiB  
Article
Insulating Building Components Made from a Mixture of Waste and Vegetal Materials: Thermal Characterization of Nine New Products
by Maria La Gennusa, Concettina Marino, Antonino Nucara, Maria Francesca Panzera and Matilde Pietrafesa
Sustainability 2021, 13(24), 13820; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su132413820 - 14 Dec 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1912
Abstract
Nowadays, energy efficiency and sustainability are the fulcra of building policies. These policies promote the use of new technologies and materials that can reduce the primary energy involved and the environmental costs of construction, guarantying at the same time a high level of [...] Read more.
Nowadays, energy efficiency and sustainability are the fulcra of building policies. These policies promote the use of new technologies and materials that can reduce the primary energy involved and the environmental costs of construction, guarantying at the same time a high level of comfort for the building’s occupants. Synergy between previous construction techniques and the use of new materials should be pursued by employing materials with a low environmental impact and optimal thermal insulation properties. Within this framework, new materials derived from the agriculture sector, and waste or recycling products from the industrial/agricultural sectors have been studied. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this field by analysing the insulation properties of new environmentally friendly materials composited from waste or vegetal products for their applications within the construction sector. Measurements of the thermal conductivity of nine different samples are carried out, obtaining promising results suggesting that these products can be used as feasible alternatives to the materials traditionally used for construction and insulation. However, further analyses are certainly recommended, to assess the samples’ structural properties and the influence of pre-treatments on the samples. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Efficiency and Comfort Indoor in Smart Buildings)
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29 pages, 2439 KiB  
Article
A Complementary Approach to Traditional Energy Balances for Assessing Energy Efficiency Measures in Final Uses: The Case of Space Heating and Cooling in Argentina
by Roque G Stagnitta, Matteo V Rocco and Emanuela Colombo
Sustainability 2020, 12(16), 6563; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12166563 - 13 Aug 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1921
Abstract
Energy balances have been historically conceived based on a supply-side perspective, providing neither detailed information about energy conversion into useful services nor the effects that may be induced by the application of policies in other sectors to energy consumption. This article proposes an [...] Read more.
Energy balances have been historically conceived based on a supply-side perspective, providing neither detailed information about energy conversion into useful services nor the effects that may be induced by the application of policies in other sectors to energy consumption. This article proposes an approach to a thorough assessment of the impact of efficiency policies on final energy uses, focusing on residential space heating and cooling, and capable of: (1) quantifying final useful services provided and (2) accounting for the global impact of efficiency policies on final energy use, taking advantage of Input–Output analysis. This approach is applied in five cities of Argentina. Firstly, the quantity of energy service provided (i.e., level of thermal comfort) for each city is evaluated and compared with the defined target. It is found out that heating comfort is guaranteed approximately as established, whereas in the cooling case the provision is twice the established level. Secondly, primary energy consumption of heating and cooling services is evaluated before and after different efficiency improvement policies. The results show that the major primary energy saving (52%) is obtained from the upgrading appliances scenario and reflect the importance of accounting for embodied energy in goods and services involved in interventions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Efficiency and Comfort Indoor in Smart Buildings)
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Review

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14 pages, 4100 KiB  
Review
Fibrous Materials for Potential Efficient Energy Recovery at Low-Temperature Heat
by Patrizia Frontera, Lucio Bonaccorsi, Antonio Fotia and Angela Malara
Sustainability 2023, 15(8), 6567; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su15086567 - 12 Apr 2023
Viewed by 1106
Abstract
Technology must improve energy generation and utilization to support human societies. All highly industrialized nations support the attempt to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources—a process which is irreversible—but the support is not yet strong enough to make the switch. Energy-efficient [...] Read more.
Technology must improve energy generation and utilization to support human societies. All highly industrialized nations support the attempt to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources—a process which is irreversible—but the support is not yet strong enough to make the switch. Energy-efficient and renewable heating and cooling systems offer considerable energy saving potential, since buildings use a large percentage of EU energy for heating and cooling, which still uses fossil fuels (75%). For this transition, innovation regarding the traditional material for thermal energy storage appears to be crucial. This work proposes a review of a new approach to thermochemical materials for energy recovery in the low-temperature range, based on the production of microfibers by electrospinning. The novelty of applying fibrous materials in thermal energy storage systems is related to the particular configuration of the adsorbing phase and the production technique used. Microfibers show a large surface area, high vapor permeability, and high structural stability, and they can be easily electrospun to form self-standing foils or coatings for heat exchangers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Efficiency and Comfort Indoor in Smart Buildings)
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