Energy Efficiency and Financial Performance of a Reference Hotel - Proposing a Global Cost-Benefit Analysis

Academic literature suggests a positive relationship between environmental and financial performance in property investments: in addition to the energy savings related to the building renovation, co-benefits can be reaped, ranging from being healthier to providing lower ownership risk. In this context, the paper describes the EU prescribed cost-optimality calculation performed for a hotel building and proposes an experimental revised version on the cost-optimal methodology, in which the co-benefits of energy retrofit are assessed and included in the calculation. An Italian existing Reference Hotel (RH) was selected as baseline model for the cost-optimal analysis. A number of Energy Efficiency Measures (EEMs) and packages of EEMs for the building envelope were applied to the RH, for which energy performances were assessed through a dynamic energy simulation software. Firstly, primary energy consumptions and global costs of the packages of EEMs were derived to identify the cost-optimal configuration from a financial point of view. The second step of the work dealt with the definition of a revised version of the formula for global cost. The proposed “global cost-benefit” formula was then applied to all the retrofit options. Results showed that including co-benefits can significantly reduce the global cost of retrofit projects and can transform the cost-optimal methodology in a useful tool for modifying investors’ perception of the financial convenience of retrofit interventions.