Energy and Water Monitoring for a Large Social Housing Intervention in Northern Italy

Abstract

In recent years, the awareness of the problem of the performance gap and rebound effect extends the interest in assessing the real operation of buildings, in assessing how buildings match users' needs once they are occupied, and in understanding how occupants' behavior affects the actual building performance. The paper discusses the case study and presents the results of a monitoring campaign of 2 years of occupancy of a large social housing intervention recently built near Milan, for a total of 152 flats. Data about the thermal energy consumption for heating and cooling, the domestic hot and cold water use, and the occupants' intervention on controlling devices are assessed and presented. The case study is representative of the actual design and construction of high-performing multi-family buildings in Italy. All the buildings are class A rated, very highly insulated, and ventilated with centralized mechanical ventilation systems with thermodynamic heat recovery. Centralized water-to-water heat pumps supply hot and refrigerated water for heating and cooling and domestic hot water as well. A building monitoring system is installed, able to track energy and water consumption, factors influencing the energy consumption not related to the building characteristics (weather data, operational setting) as well as the overall building performance data. The results show unexpected high energy and water consumption and moreover a large variability of the energy and water consumption pattern among the dwellings and between the years due to the significant influence of the occupants' behavior and habits.

Management of the maintenance process in social housing: A case study

“…Results presented in this work contribute to the knowledge base of social housing management and related available technologies. Few studies have been carried out on social housing management (e.g., Costarelli et al, 2020; Filippi & Sirombo, 2019).…”

“…Aligned with previous works found in the literature, this study takes into account the projections and strategies of the European Commission like the EU Reference Scenario, 2016 (e.g., Dall'O' et al, 2020;Filippi & Sirombo, 2019) since the described results allow to gather the information necessary for a more effective monitoring and interventions for energy savings. In this regard, the illustrated solution can provide data, such as a building energy performance score or energy plant types installed, which supports decision making related to environmental sustainability.…”

“…The sustainability and improvement of building energy performance are, indeed, the most common topics in studies related to social housing management or similar housing stocks (e.g., Blázquez et al, 2021;Cubillos-González & Cardoso, 2020;Domínguez-Amarillo et al, 2020;Jnat et al, 2020). In the Italian context, Dall'O' et al (2020), Ferrara et al (2017, Pierangioli et al (2017) and Filippi and Sirombo (2019) explore and provide solutions for social housing issues. Among these, (Pierangioli et al, 2017) consider refurbishment as one of the most common interventions, and it must be properly planned for effective energy savings.…”

“…This study and several other ones (i.e., Balest & Vettorato, 2018; Costarelli et al, 2020; Domínguez‐Amarillo et al, 2020; Elsharkawy & Rutherford, 2015; Pierangioli et al, 2017), include the analysis of dwellers' behavior when dealing with energy performance improvement, by collecting fragmented data from bills and other sources. Furthermore, Filippi and Sirombo (2019) developed a building monitoring system for large social housing interventions on 152 flats in the North of Italy, where energy and water consumptions were monitored and assessed taking into account the user behavior.…”

“…Social housing policies, dynamics, and needs may differ, indeed, for each country in terms of aim, market, and policies (e.g., Costarelli et al, 2020; Priemus & Dieleman, 2002) and some studies are focused on the Italian and Mediterranean contexts (e.g., Filippi & Sirombo, 2019; Mangialardi et al, 2022). The Italian context represents a valuable case, useful to investigate the complexity of the social housing system.…”