Nearly Zero Energy multi-functional Buildings - Energy and Economic evaluations

Building energy renovation is one of the pillars upon which the 2050 European low-carbon goals are based. Simultaneously, building energy renovation is widely recognized as the trump card for the new start of European economy. However, at present the renovation rate of the existing building is very low throughout Europe (approximately 1%) and investments in high performing buildings are generally mistrusted by stakeholders, due to their high capital costs. In this context, this PhD thesis dedicated its efforts to investigate from the energy and financial perspective the consequences of buildings renovation in the European scene. Particularly, the research boundaries were delineated by focusing on non-residential, multi-functional buildings, that are nowadays poorly studied due to their heterogeneous nature. In this view, the thesis’ contributions were addressed at three levels: a) multi-functional buildings as archetypes to input in energy models for long-term energy analysis; b) multi-functional buildings used to test the financial viability of energy efficiency projects, in view of reaching the nearly Zero Energy performance level. As these analyses necessarily require case studies, the attention was directed towards a specific type of multi-functional buildings, hotels; c) multi-functional buildings as test-bed to assess the impact of co-benefits on the financial performances of energy efficiency projects. Once again, hotel buildings were selected for the development of the detailed analyses. To include archetypes of multi-functional buildings in bottom-up building energy models, a new modelling method was proposed. The method provides a rationale for the classification of energy end-uses into typical and extra, so that the modeling problem is simplified and a coherent use of well-established Reference Buildings modelling methods is allowed. Then, the focus of the research was narrowed to the hotel sector, which was found to lack of reliable energy performance benchmarks and effective performance-based greens labels. Case study buildings were object of energy and financial evaluations. On one side, real hotels were analyzed to test the application of the EU imposed cost-optimal methodology as a support tool to guide private investors’ investment decisions. On the other side, an Italian Reference Hotel was modelled and the cost-optimal methodology was applied to investigate the existing energy and financial gaps between cost-optimal and Nearly Zero Energy performance level in Italy. From both perspectives, findings converged to similar conclusions: high performing retrofit are not financially viable, if avoided energy costs are the only operational benefits accounted for. Starting from these outcomes, the thesis investigated how valuation procedures could be exploited to make NZEB retrofit solutions appealing for private investors. Based on a literature review of the co-benefits of energy efficiency projects, 2 different strategies were pursued and tested on the Italian Reference Hotel. The first approach proposed to monetize co-benefits of energy efficiency interventions based on literature and to include them in the well-established cost-optimal methodology. Results highlighted that co-benefits related to the market appreciation of a retrofitted hotel can drastically change the perception of the financial convenience of an ambitious retrofit project. In the latter strategy, the issue of monetizing non-energy benefits was faced directly: a technique to value non-market goods was applied to monetize comfort. Findings proved that hotels guests’ willingness to pay for comfortable indoor conditions is higher than the hoteliers’ extra costs for providing them. Due to the context-dependent nature of co-benefits, the findings of the 2 applications do not represent generally applicable quantitative benchmarks. Nonetheless, they confirm the leading role that literature attribute to co-benefits in the success of energy efficiency projects.