• Energy Research
• 11. Sustainability close
• IT close
• Polytechnic University of Turin close

The decentralization of the production sector crisis following industries in the suburbs have generated a multitude of empty containers in the medium-large Italian cities, which are abandoned, unsafe, and often dangerous for the community. From this arises the need to recover them and transform them into something else. This is not always possible or interesting for the subjects involved in the transformation. When the abandoned space is (even if only partially) polluted, then any hypothesis of transformation is stopped due to the high impact of decontamination costs, which greatly compromise the profitability of the investment. This paper deals with this issue focusing on a complex case study involving the abandoned area and the buildings of a former paint mill in the center of a typical city in the Turin metropolitan area. The suggested hypothesis is to act only on building components and external areas without any ground modification because of its contamination. Moreover, the new planned use (energy production from renewable sources to supply part of the public administration’s needs) does not foresee neither a stable presence of people nor a further consumption of land. The technical analysis of community energy needs and the subsequent economic and financial study lead to a financial sustainability over a period of about 25 years.

This work presents a project of hi-tech and supergreen ‘nZEB casale’ in Italy. The ‘nZEB casale’ is located in Matera, in the south of Italy. The project concerns the renovation of a medieval ‘casale’, a group of rural houses for residential use. The shape of the new nZEB is in the style of old light-colored buildings, compact and with projections and shielding elements to reduce the summer thermal loads. The use of local and certified materials for the construction of buildings has resulted in a low environmental impact of buildings and an excellent winter and summer energy performance reaching the best energy class A4. Finally, this work presents an environmental protocol to be applied to nZEBs in order to take into account the other benefits of these constructions, as well as the energy benefits.

The development of new methods for the correct disposal of waste is unavoidable for any city that aims to become eco-friendly. Waste management is no exception. In the modern era, the treatment and disposal of infectious waste should be seen as an opportunity to generate renewable energy, resource efficiency, and, above all, to improve the population’s quality of life. Northern Italy currently produces 66,600 tons/year of infectious waste, mostly treated through incineration plants. This research aims to explore a more ecological and sustainable solution, thereby contributing one more step toward achieving better cities for all. Particularly, this paper presents a conceptual design of the main sterilization chamber for infectious waste. The methodology selected was Design Thinking (DT), since it has a user-centered approach which allows for co-design and the inclusion of the target population. This study demonstrates to the possibility of obtaining feasible results based on the user’s needs through the application of DT as a framework for engineering design.

Abstract District Heating (DH) technology is considered to be a sustainable and quasi-renewable way of producing and distributing hot water along the city to heat buildings. However, the main obstacle to wider adoption of DH technology is represented by the thermal request peak in the morning hours of winter days, especially in Mediterranean countries. In this paper, this peak-shaving problem is tackled by combining three different approaches. A thermodynamic model is used to monitor the buildings’ thermal response to energy profile modifications. An agent-based model is adopted in order to represent the end-users and their adaptability to variations of temperatures in buildings. Finally, a Reinforcement Learning algorithm is used to optimally mediate between two needs: on the one hand, a set of anticipations and delays is applied to the energy profiles in order to reduce the thermal request peak. On the other hand, the algorithm learns by trial and error the individual agents’ sensitivity to thermal comfort, avoiding drastic modifications for the most sensitive users. The experiments carried out in the DH network in Torino (north-west of Italy) demonstrate that the proposed approach, compared with a literature solution chosen as a baseline, allows to achieve better results in terms of overall performances and speed of convergence.

Abstract Driven by urbanization growth, in recent years, the relationships among energy systems and underground space are becoming more and more intense for many reasons: the severe competition in the land use, the security of energy commodities management, the need of huge infrastructures for mass and energy transportation (e.g. pipelines), the safety requirements against seismic events and eventually, economic and environmental considerations. For such reasons, nowadays underground space is becoming an extremely important as an alternative for urban areas expansion, if properly planned. In fact, a correct underground space planning strategy, together with the progressive developments of suitable integrated connections between surface and subsurface can increase the livability of cities and improve public health. Population in urban areas is expected to grow, in particular in developing economies (such as China); this phenomenon leads to an increasing pressure on urban areas to supply the growing energy needs. In fact, several end-use services should be fulfilled to provide indoor comfort in buildings, for mobility of people and goods, etc. Anyway, only a very limited amount of energy can be generated inside urban areas (from municipal solid wastes, from thermal/solar PV and heat pumps installations); as a consequence, the majority of the energy commodities are produced, converted and stored in power plants located far from cities and require huge transport infrastructures. In this paper, the cost/benefit relationship between underground and energy use is explained by reviewing main application of existing underground space utilizations for energy processes (distribution, storage and generation), as well as other innovative opportunities. From the analysis of past experiences analysis, the main conclusion is that a rational approach in urban energy planning procedures, integrating both over- and below-ground space utilizations, could help to raise the quality of energy services and it is fundamental for reaching a smarter and more resilient society. In such a new Underground Urbanism approach, the need for long-term Integrated Master Plans that propose suitable Guidelines is highlighted.

In this paper, the design of an event-driven user-centric middleware for monitoring and managing energy consumption in public buildings and spaces is presented. The main purpose is to increase energy efficiency in buildings and public spaces, thus reducing consumption. To achieve this, the proposed service-oriented middleware has been designed to be event based, also exploiting the user behavior patterns of people who live and work in buildings. Furthermore, it allows an easy integration of heterogeneous technologies in order to enable a hardware-independent interoperability between them. Moreover, a heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) control strategy has been developed, and the whole infrastructure has been deployed in a real-world case study consisting of a historical building. Finally, the results will be presented and discussed.

The concept of ‘resilience’ breaks down silos by providing a ‘conceptual umbrella’ under which different disciplines come together to tackle complex problems with more holistic interventions. Acknowledging the complexity of Davoudi’s approach (2012) means to recognize that ‘spatial resilience’ is influenced by many phenomena that are difficult to measure: the adaptation and transformation of a co-evolutive system. This paper introduces a pioneering approach that is propaedeutic to the spatial measure of urban resilience assuming that it is possible to define a system as being intrinsically vulnerable to stress and shocks and minimally resilient, as described by Folke in 2006. In this sense, vulnerability is counterpoised to resilience, even if they act simultaneously: the first includes the exposure to a specific hazard, whereas the second emerges from the characteristics of a complex socio-ecological and technical system. Here we present a Geographic Information System-based vulnerability matrix performed in ESRI ArcGIS 10.6 environment as an output of the spatial interaction between sensitivities, shocks, and linear pressures of the urban system. The vulnerability is the first step of measuring the resilience of the system by a semi-quantitative approach. The spatial interaction of these measures is useful to define the interventions essential to designing and building the adaptation of the built environment by planning governance. Results demonstrate how mapping resilience aids the spatial planning decision-making processes, indicating where and what interventions are necessary to adapt and transform the system.

Finding cost-optimal solutions towards nearly-zero energy buildings in accordance with the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) is a challenging task. In order to reach the 20-20-20 targets, EU energy policy has introduced new ambitious levels for the large-scale spread of nearly-zero energy buildings (nZEBs) and the concept of the cost-optimal level, defined as the energy performance level, which leads to the lowest cost during the estimated economic lifecycle of the building. Consequently, building design has begun a challenge involving both energy targets and economic concerns. The aim of this research is to analyze an example building of a new single family house, using the cost-optimal methodology, in order to define how energy and economic aspects influence the preliminary design phase of the project and, in particular, the choice of the performance features of some components of the project itself, such as envelope elements and systems. The impact on energy performances of different configurations for the building envelope and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems was assessed with the dynamic simulation software EnergyPlus. Finally, the costs of the different design scenarios were estimated, according to the European Standard EN 15459:2007 to establish which of them had the lowest global cost and, consequently, represents the cost-optimal level for the design configurations analyzed. In order to test the stability of the results obtained, different sensitivity analyses were carried out.