Marcel Macarulla

• Lecturer at Polytechnic University of Catalonia

The COVID-19 emergency evidenced the value of keeping indoor spaces properly ventilated, which increased the interest in CO2 loggers. However, when monitoring, many significant variables are often overlooked, such as sensor specifications, the position of the system with respect to the airflow path (or occupants), and the relationship between these...

In industrial scenarios, nanoparticles are incidentally generated in high concentrations during diverse material transformation processes, presenting potential health hazards for exposed workers. Consequently, as an indoor air quality management measure, their concentration is commonly reduced through localized forced ventilation. However, the cont...

Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems play a critical role in maintaining indoor temperature and air quality, directly impacting occupant health, well-being, and productivity. However, their high energy consumption necessitates optimization, for which model predictive control (MPC) has proven highly effective. Grey box modelling...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, natural ventilation emerged as a widely recommended strategy to improve indoor air quality and reduce airborne infection risks. However, due to the inert uncertainty, accurately determining natural ventilation rates to assess the true impact of this practice proved challenging for building managers. Traditionally, the...

The European Union has emphasized policies promoting photovoltaic (PV) energy generation to achieve the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals 7 and 13. Notably, building roofs suitable for PV panels also present opportunities for passive energy-saving methods, such as green roofs. Both approaches impact beyond buildings to the urban level;...

The SYMBIOSYST project, co-funded by the EC Horizon Europe Programme, aims to harmonise solar energy production with agricultural needs by developing photovoltaic (PV) solutions suitable for both open field and greenhouse settings across varied climates in three countries. Four agrivoltaic demonstrators are being planned, covering different scenari...

In non-residential buildings, building energy management systems (BEMS) and the application of data hold significant promise in reducing energy consumption. Nevertheless, BEMS have different levels of complexity, benefit, and limitation. Despite the advanced technologies and improvements in building operation, there is a clear gap in the actual per...

The purpose of this study is to present interdisciplinary insights on vertical green systems (VGS) design in hot climate zones. The approach to the VGS design proposed in this article combines architectural design, structural systems, green building and township development with sustainable urban farming, circularity, waste and water management. On...

Indoor CO2 concentration serves as an indicator of indoor air quality, which is mainly influenced by occupants’ CO2 generation rate, outdoor ventilation rate and outdoor CO2 levels. Determining the CO2 generation rate is fundamental to design effective ventilation systems that ensure good indoor air quality. The ASTM D6245 standard offers a method...

In SYMBIOSYST (an EU funded Horizon Europe project started in January 2023) we will introduce innovation by adapting standardized cost-effective solutions in terms of PV modules, mounting structures and Operation and Maintenance (O&M) practices to the specific needs of various crops in different climates and landscapes. With this, we will avoid one...

Current indoor air quality strategies are based on the measurement and control of carbon dioxide (CO2) indoor concentration. Most educational buildings rely only on natural ventilation, making indoor air quality highly dependent on weather conditions. Therefore, to ensure the safety and well-being of students and teachers, it is necessary to determ...

In building areas with high occupancy, such as classrooms, transmission routes of SARS-CoV-2 are increased when indoor air quality is deficient. Under this scenario, universities have adopted ventilation measures to mitigate contagious environments. However, the lack of adequate equipment or designs in old educational buildings is a barrier to reac...

Simple neural network (NN) architecture is a reliable tool to transform reactive rule-based systems into predictive systems. Thermal comfort is of utmost importance in office buildings, which need the activation of heating systems at an optimal time. A high-performance NN predictive system requires a large training dataset. This can limit system ef...

The transition of students from high school to university is a changing and complicated stage. It is during the initial phase when most drop-outs from engineering degrees occur. There are several reasons for this, however, the most highlighted ones are: i) the mismatch between the students knowledge level after finishing high school and the initial...

There is a growing need to optimize the heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems during building operations due to its high contribution to buildings' energy consumption and the willingness to meet the international energy and climate changes targets. Predictive and adaptive controls have arisen as proper tools to reduce the HVAC's e...

Exceptional pandemic lockdown measures enabled singular experiments such as analysing the energy consumption of vacant buildings. This paper assesses the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the energy use of academic buildings. For this purpose, weather-adjusted energy use was compared before and during the lockdown, including different levels of lo...

The automotive sector is rapidly accelerating its transformation towards electric mobility, and electric vehicle (EV) sales have been increasing year after year since the beginning of the decade [...]

Nursing homes are designed and operated to meet general thermal specifications outlined by existing standards. This paper presents adaptive thermal comfort models for nursing homes based on the field survey administered in 100 common rooms of five nursing homes in the Mediterranean climate. The survey included simultaneous measurements of outdoor a...

Considering the progressive population aging, the fact that old people spend around 90% of their time indoors and the high energy expenditure of heating systems, thermal comfort in nursing homes should be analysed. The aim of this study is to analyse the thermal comfort during the winter of elderly people living in nursing homes (residents) and com...

Dear Colleagues, If you are working in the field of electric vehicles, batteries, or energy storage applications, this might be of interest to you. This is a formal invitation to participate in the Special Issue of Energies on “High-Capacity Cells and Batteries for Electric Vehicles”. More info at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies/special_is...

This paper analyzes the impact of an innovative approach based on gamification to promote reduced energy consumption in social housing. The game was developed and validated under the auspices of the EU-funded project EnerGAware-Energy Game for Awareness of energy efficiency in social housing communities in an affordable housing pilot located in Ply...

To determine the air ventilation flows in a room deterministic approaches based on the CO2 tracer-gas mass balance equation are usually used. Those equations do not enable to introduce to the system uncertainties such as the sensor measurement error. In this paper, the use of the stochastic differential equations based on the CO2 tracer-gas mass ba...

Buildings are responsible for 40% of the energy consumption and around 36% of CO2 emissions in the European Union. Administrations are funding projects enhancing energy efficiency to achieve a zero-emission building. As a consequence, many companies perceive the business potential. Several public buildings are analyzed by comparing their energy rat...

Elderly people are vulnerable to cold environments, due to aging's impact on the density of nerve fibers. Nevertheless, automatic controls of HVAC systems do not consider the user's real-time thermal sensation and most of algorithms were tested in manikins using climatic chambers or simulated by CFD. Indeed, a standardization of a non-invasive tech...

The number of people living in nursing homes is increasing due to the growth of ageing population. However, existing standards on thermal comfort do not consider how occupants of nursing homes perceive their thermal environment. This study investigated the thermal sensation of elderly people during summer season in nursing homes from the Mediterran...

ICT-based solutions are seen to be almost totally environmentally friendly, but game-based solutions for energy saving have not been explored yet. This paper describes a comprehensive analysis and an in-depth interpretation of the life cycle environmental impact of a game-based solution for domestic energy saving, developed and validated within the...

The European Green Deal establishes the need to renovate buildings in an energy efficient way, to address climate and environmental challenges. The purpose of this study was to devise a model for identifying environmental, cost-effective retrofitting measures by assessing their energy, economic and environmental impact when they are applied to the...

The application of gamification to encourage energy conservation behaviour in house occupants is an emerging field of research. However, empirical evidence of its effectiveness is lacking. This paper presents lessons learnt from the EU-funded EnerGAware research project, in which an innovative serious game (a game designed for purposes other than p...

Buildings play a central role in the clean energy transition, which is why it is vital to understand how energy is consumed in this sector. Energy performance certificate databases are considered a key source of information on the characteristics of built building stock. Despite a growing portfolio of studies based on information from such database...

A large number of buildings must be evaluated to formulate energy retrofitting policies for existing building stock. In this context, it is crucial to identify reference buildings that can effectively represent the entire stock, since such buildings can then be used to assess the individualized cost-effectiveness of retrofitting measures. This pape...

A gap in standardization of quantitative infrared thermography (IRT) directly leads to a lack of measurement pattern for determining in-situ U-values of heavy multi-leaf walls. Three groups of causal factors might influence the estimation of this build quality indicator: operating conditions, thermophysical properties and technical conditions. Focu...

Buildings subject to Energy Performance Contracts (EPCs) are usually quite complex public buildings, sometimes relatively old and usually barely documented from the technical standpoint. Gathering comprehensive and reliable technical information is a time consuming and expensive process that has to be carried out within the submission deadline. In...

The measurement of ventilation air change rate is a difficult, expensive task in buildings. Usually, the tracer-gas mass balance equation is used to determine ventilation air change rates. This method uses an ordinary differential equation. Consequently, it cannot deal with disturbances that enter the system, such as the influence of unrecognized a...

Most existing commercial building energy management systems (BEMS) are reactive rule-based. This means that an action is produced when an event occurs. In consequence, these systems cannot predict future scenarios and anticipate events to optimize building operation. This paper presents the procedure of implementing a predictive control strategy in...

Rework adversely impacts the performance of building projects. In this study, data were analyzed from 788 construction incidents in 40 Spanish building projects to determine the effects of project and managerial characteristics on rework costs. Finally, regression analysis was used to understand the relationships among contributing factors and to d...

Energy Performance Contracts (EPC) are contractual agreements between beneficiaries and energy service providers , where budgets are established in relation to a determined level of energy performance. Hence, the problem of forecasting the energy performance of buildings in the EPC tendering phase becomes relevant for the reliability of the overall...

Predictive control is the strategy that has the greatest reported benefits when it is implemented in a building energy management system. Predictive control requires low-order models to assess different scenarios and determine which strategy should be implemented to achieve a good compromise between comfort, energy consumption and energy cost. Usua...

Buildings in Europe are responsible of 40% of the final energy consumption. With the aim to accomplish the European 20/20/20 targets, buildings play an important role. Moreover, public buildings should exemplify the best practices in terms of energy efficiency. In this context this paper describes an energy management system for buildings developed...

Housing represents about 29% of the total energy consumption in Europe and contributes with around 20% of emissions (European Commission 2013). Social housing represents about 12% of the total European housing stock and therefore is a significant target for energy efficiency measures by governments of EU member states. This paper is aimed at explor...

Mobile applications and well-implemented technology can help governments increase the efficiency and effectiveness of information analysis and exchange. This paper presents a case study on the implementation of a mobile application to record accessibility information in the commercial buildings of Terrassa. To record and analyze the accessibility o...

In the Operation and Maintenance (O&M) phase of an existing building, frequently, different systems are available to manage data about building maintenance. However, current practices do not integrate these systems and still manually process dispersed and unformatted data. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential benefits of the in...

Lighting systems are usually one of the largest electrical end-uses in underground metro stations. Taking into account that budget restrictions in publicly owned companies hinder energy efficiency retrofit projects that require high initial investments, affordable energy saving strategies are needed. This paper presents a low-cost approach for redu...

Although energy management systems are expected to result in decreased energy consumption, it is important not to overlook the energy used until commissioning (including raw materials acquisition, manufacturing and transportation) and during the usage phase (including operation and maintenance). This paper examines the energy performance of an inte...

Several previous research initiatives have highlighted the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as key enablers for decreasing energy usage in buildings. However, few advances have been achieved in underground public spaces. This paper introduces a novel intelligent energy management system for underground stations. The system i...

Smart grids play an important role in the modernization and optimization of the existing electrical grid, to accomplish the current European Union Energy and Climate targets. Smart grids require distributed applications to manage the grid more efficiently. The performance of the distributed applications impacts on the communications delay time and...

Energy performance certificate databases are a key tool for mapping national building stock and thus fostering greater overall energy efficiency. This paper presents an insight into the energy performance of residential and tertiary sector buildings in Spain, through an analysis of the first 129,635 energy performance certificates issued for existi...

Although inspections occur during construction or at handover, customers do not normally participate. This situation creates a gap between the quality perceived by both contractors and customers. An analysis of 52 552 handover defects in 2179 flats in Spain is presented which identified their nature, the building element and trade where these defec...

We examine the implementation of waste management practices in construction projects and sites.•We also examine construction companies’ perceptions of the current legal framework.•We use survey responses from 74 Spanish construction companies.•We identify various instruments and measures for more sustainable construction waste management.

This paper presents for the first time the results of a life cycle assessment study for an intelligent energy management system. We considered material acquisition, manufacturing, transportation, assembly, operation and maintenance stages. The results show that the assembly phase had an environmental impact of 897 Eco-indicator 99 points that was m...

Building sector is contributing to the 36% of the C02 emissions in Europe, and consurning the 40% of final energy consurnption. In this context this paper presents a new approach developed under the ENCOURAGE project to carry out the user awareness. The proposed user awareness is based on a set of KPls, and done at two levels: energy mangers and un...

Underground transportation systems are big energy consumers and have significant impacts on energy consumption at a regional scale. The literature has revealed that the energy consumption for non-traction purposes may be of the same magnitude as the energy used to move rolling stock, and in some cases even greater. However, most of the research con...

The building industry is noted for its repeated building defects causing cost increases and time delays during construction. In Spain, despite the Ley de Ordenacion de la Edificacion (Building Regulation Act), which establishes a general framework to promote overall building quality, construction defects in residential buildings remain a pervasive...

The research findings fill a gap in the body of knowledge by presenting an effective way to evaluate the significance of on-site environmental impacts of municipal engineering works prior to the construction stage. First, 42 on-site environmental impacts of municipal engineering works were identified by means of a process-oriented approach. Then, 4...

Purpose – This paper examines the scenario of a university campus, and the impact on energy consumption of the awareness of building managers and users (lecturers, students and administrative staff).Design/methodology/approach – This study draws a comparison between direct fruition of the information by both skilled (building managers) and unskille...

Despite the increasing efforts made by the construction sector to reduce the environmental impact of their processes, construction sites are still a major source of pollution and adverse impacts on the environment. This paper aims to improve the understanding of construction-related environmental impacts by identifying on-site causal factors and as...

In Spain, the Ley de Ordenacion de la Edificacion (Building Regulation Act) has established compulsory warranties to ensure that buildings meet basic requirements with regard to functionality, general safety and structure, fireproofing, and use and habitability. Despite the requirements of this regulatory body, defects in newly built dwellings rema...

Knowledge management (KM) has been studied extensively in recent years. Some consider knowledge to be the most strategically important resource for any company, but the fragmented, project-based and task-oriented nature of construction work makes it more difficult to implement KM in this sector.This paper presents a survey of perceptions of KM impl...

There is limited systematic knowledge available about the dynamics of rework in highway projects, despite the fact that they frequently exceed budget and schedule by more than 10%. A case study of a Spanish highway project, which experienced a significant cost overrun as a result of rework, is examined and the causal factors that contributed to its...

Defects produce economic and temporal deviations in construction projects. Although learning from past experiences can help reduce defects and their consequences, usually data is not easily available or is poorly structured and difficult to analyze. Several structured classification systems for defects exist, but regionally specific construction ac...

In Spain, the high levels of inexperienced workers and the long chains of subcontracting contribute to the poor quality of dwellings. Although the Ley reguladora de la subcontratacion en el Sector de la Construccion (subcontracting law) has established quality measures, the number of customer complaints is still increasing. In this paper, a total o...

Clients' lack of involvement in defining quality requirements for dwellings built by developers leads to a perception of poor quality at the time of purchase. The research presented in this paper aims to broaden previous research on defects by analyzing the defects that remain in the post-handover stage, which usually lasts 12 months after the hand...