Facility Energy Management Application of HBIM for Historical Low-Carbon Communities: Design, Modelling and Operation Control of Geothermal Energy Retrofit in a Real Italian Case Study

Abstract

The highest challenge of energy efficiency of building stock is achieving improved performance in existing buildings and, especially, in heritage buildings which per se are characterized by massive limitations against the implementation of the most sophisticated solutions for energy saving. In Italy, historical buildings represent more than 30% of the building stock and the vast majority require energy retrofit, while ensuring the preservation of the heritage value and acceptable comfort conditions. In this context, historical buildings must be retrofitted and re-functioned by introducing innovative technologies aimed at reducing energy consumption and improving human comfort, health, and safety. To this aim, this study implements the Historic Building Information Modeling (HBIM) approach for the integrated modeling, monitoring, management, and maintenance of a novel geothermal system involving horizontal ground source heat exchangers (GHEXs) coupled to an adsorption heat pump for the energy refurbishment of historical buildings. In detail, a rural building part of a medieval complex in Perugia, Central Italy, is considered as a pilot case study. The analysis stresses the potential of the Facility Management (FM) applications of HBIM to provide a tool for the human-centric operational management control of the building energy performance and indoor comfort when combined with the building monitoring and supervision system. Therefore, this integrated HBIM approach may drive the path towards the user-centric re-functioning of heritage buildings.

Up-To-Date Challenges for the Conservation, Rehabilitation and Energy Retrofitting of Higher Education Cultural Heritage Buildings

“…HBIM models of the building and its surroundings are built after the automatic data collection (laser scanning) of the geometry and using parametric objects. In the case of HBs, BIM models are often complemented with the use of the Revit platform [37], as in the following Italian studies [38,39].…”

Building Information Modeling (BIM) Driven Carbon Emission Reduction Research: A 14-Year Bibliometric Analysis

“…As shown in Table 3, the main research methods used in the construction phase of BIMaided building carbon emissions are modeling [64,[113][114][115] and case studies [116][117][118]. The refurbishment of buildings obtains attention at this stage.…”

Revisión sistemática de la literatura: aumento de la eficiencia energética de los edificios a través del retrofit en un enfoque BIM

“…Sanhudo et al (2018) informam problemas em alguns software como a confiabilidade da inserção dos dados bioclimáticos e do cálculo do volume dos ambientes da edificação. De modo geral, pesquisadores indicam que a interoperabilidade de arquivos de formatos IFC, XML e gbXML possuem falhas e se tornam um desafio para completa implantação do BIM para análise de EEE (HAMIDA et al, 2020;HOSSEINI;SHIRMOHAMMADI;ASLANI, 2020;PISELLI et al, 2020a).…”