Stefano Paolo Corgnati

Polytechnic University of Turin | polito · DENERG - Department of Energy

To achieve climate and energy goals in the building sector, the current pace of renovating existing structures must double, overcoming prevailing barriers. Key Performance Indicators play a pivotal role in science-based decision making, emphasizing both direct and indirect benefits of building retrofits. The authors aim to contribute to proper metr...

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant changes to human life and habits. There is an increasing urgency to promote occupants’ health and well-being in the built environment where they spend most of their lives, putting indoor air quality (IAQ) in the spotlight. This study fits into this context, aiming to provide useful information about the...

The perception, physiology, behavior, and performance of building occupants are influenced by multi-domain exposures: the simultaneous presence of multiple environmental stimuli, i.e., visual, thermal, acoustic, and air quality. Despite being extensive, the literature on multi-domain exposures presents heterogeneous methodological approaches and in...

This paper provides a methodological proposal for the sustainability of sports events. Nowadays the topic of sustainability is of great interest due to the dangers of climate change the world is experiencing, mainly caused by human activities. The concept of sustainability has increasingly gained relevance in areas ranging from the efficiency of bu...

To achieve the energy and emissions reduction goals for the building sector, actions are needed to improve energy efficiency and occupants’ wellbeing. To increase the uptake of smart technologies and the awareness upon their benefits, in line with the smart building revolution that is starting, the EPBD recast introduced the Smart Readiness Indicat...

In Europe, a growing interest on energy performance evaluation of historic buildings has been observed in the last years, as proved by the increasing number of scientific contributions on this topic. This trend is partially influenced by the low replacement rate of existing buildings (averagely under 3%), but also by the age of building stock in Eu...

The aim of the guideline is to support, in a practical way, a design process for realizing Nearly-Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) in the context of Mediterranean-climate, focusing more on the mechanical systems than on the building envelope, which has previously been treated in Part 1. The Guidebook covers the design of Heating, Ventilation and Air Co...

Cities represent the places with the greatest environmental and energy impacts in the world. Their transformation through a sustainable key would make possible reducing the pressures registered in these areas. According to the Sustainable Development Goals, attention has shifted more and more to the creation of sustainable and safe communities, cha...

The concept of smartness in building dates to the 1970s, but, in face of the breakthrough technological developments, a new notion of smart building is currently recognized. We talk about ambient intelligence, referring to a building which is responsive to the needs of the occupants and of the energy system. An ambient-intelligent building is human...

The global attention towards climate change has led national governments and the international community to the definition of plans aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in all economic sectors. Recently, attention has focused also on the tourism sector, and especially on the lodging industry, which consumes high amounts of resources and energy...

The building sector is currently responsible of 40% of global final energy consumption, influencing the broader energy system in terms of new electricity and heat capacity additions, as well as distribution infrastructure reinforcement. Current building energy efficiency potential is largely untapped, especially at the local level where retrofit in...

The building sector plays a crucial role in the advocated transition towards a carbon-free economy, and thus the zero-carbon building concept is taking hold. The paper focuses on the issue of existing hotels, with the aim of investigating the possibility of meeting the ambitious zero-carbon targets for this category of buildings, in which guests’ c...

Universities play a headship role among entities that invest in technological progress and intend to increase education in sustainable culture towards a post-carbon society. With this in mind, Politecnico di Torino is a leader on the national and international scene. It has prepared sustainability lines for the next few years to translate the Susta...

Purpose The cost-optimal analysis is not able to address the multi-dimensionality of the decision according to the new European objectives and International sustainable development goals in the field of the nearly-zero energy building (NZEB) design. The purpose of this paper is to study the role of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) for guidin...

Nowadays, there is a need for reducing building's energy consumption while preserving a comfortable and healthy indoor environment. After a detailed analysis of the literature in the domain of indoor environmental quality, occupant well-being, health and productivity, the paper explores the relationships between energy retrofit, interventions, indo...

Due to the role of cities in driving the transition to a more sustainable future, an urban level perspective becomes fundamental to support decision-makers in defining long-term coordinated strategies. The driving idea of this paper is to examine different urban retrofit scenarios and study them from an energy, environmental and economic point of v...

Traditionally, local energy planning has been carried out following a sectorial approach, neglecting the long-term effects of energy policies, not considering social and environmental elements and omitting important actors involved. More innovative approaches lead to consider evaluation models able to take into account the full range of impacts gen...

The building sector is considered strategic to reach new scenarios for a low-carbon society. Beside this awareness, in the current trend there is not a real change to achieve targets set in terms of emissions containment defined by international agreements. Through an econometric model based on Choice Experiments, the present study aims to understa...

The stochastic nature of the human-building interaction is an established key driver of uncertainty when it comes to the prediction of energy consumptions in buildings. To retrieve behaviour-related data on a large scale, and to avoid the setup of complex in-field monitoring strategies, survey-based investigations can be a useful tool to obtain inf...

Urban areas are responsible for almost 75% of overall resource consumption. To avoid a further increase of these values, it is important to implement energy efficiency measures, in order to achieve the target of Post Carbon Cities (PCC). Next to the concept of Post Carbon Cities, is emerging the Post Carbon District (PCD), which becomes the appropr...

In Europe, more than 14% of the whole building stock dates from before 1920, but this percentage reaches over 50% in several urban centres. Therefore, historic buildings are fundamental to reach the current Europeans CO2 emissions' reduction targets. Historic buildings' energy retrofit is relevant not only from an environmental point of view; since...

AIM • The aim of this guidebook is to develop a basic framework of a design guideline to deliver the most appropriate and costeffective solutions for NZEB in Mediterranean climates. • This guidebook (Part 1) represents specific conditions of Mediterranean climate, aspects related to theoretical background and building envelope design. • Additionall...

The “Clean Energy for all European” package have recently updated the European target related to energy efficiency and emissions reduction, which are becoming more and more ambitious. In this framework, the building sector is expected to contribute in a relevant way, representing, with mobility, one of the main energy-and-carbon-intensive urban sec...

The latest Directive 2018/844/EU represents the guideline for the preparation of the Italian long-term strategy for the renovation of the building stock. The Directive proposes to the Member States the realization of a complete review of the buildings on the national territory, both public and private. This study wants to contribute to the reductio...

Energy efficiency in buildings is a key issue in the current energy transition. In order to reduce building energy consumption, users’ behaviour and the perception of indoor environmental comfort must be taken into account; these aspects are inextricably linked to energy demand, consumption and related costs. In this paper, we present the methodolo...

Raising awareness among building occupants on how their behavior, comfort criteria settings, and lifestyles affect building energy use has become a central topic of innovative energy efficiency strategies. Indeed, reaching European energy efficiency goals does not only require the optimization of building design and features, but also necessitates...

Today, there is an increasing consciousness regarding the role of historical build-ings’ energy retrofit in reaching the ambitious European CO2 emissions’ reduction goals, which represents a great challenge due to the necessity of protecting their historic evi-dence. In elaborating strategies to increase historical buildings’ energy efficiency whil...

The increase in energy exploitation and air pollution have forced the European Union to deal with energy saving and CO2 emissions reduction. With specific reference to buildings, important targets by 2050 have been established, implementing 2020 energy saving goals, and the concept of NZEB (nearly zero energy building) has emerged. In this context,...

In the present-day society, people spend about 80% of their time inside buildings, and specifically 30-40% in workplaces. From this evidence, the indoor environmental quality needs to be investigated, and in particular, the possible sources of indoor-outdoor pollutants and their impact on the human health, comfort and productivity. First, through a...

In this paper, the authors provide a general overview on the methodological framework behind the monitoring and evaluation strategies of Mobistyle project that are used as reference for the demonstration cases. The strategies identify parameters that need to be evaluated during several phases regarding the impact (energy, IEQ, health, behavioural p...

Cost-optimal and nearly-zero energy building (NZEB) levels are two interrelated concepts identified for upgrading energy performance of buildings in Europe. In parallel, many research activities on retrofitting existing buildings in Turkey follow the methodology framework introduced by the European Commission. However, in Turkey, there is a process...

The outdoor air pollution and the insufficient hygiene of HVAC systems often result in low indoor air quality. The World Health Organization estimated that 50% of indoor biological contamination comes from the air-handling system; the air filters are sources of pollution due to the accumulation and proliferation of bacteria on the surface. Furtherm...

The European Union issued several directives in the field of energy efficiency which impact on the building sector in order to avoid a further increase of energy consumption and to mitigate climate change. In particular, the recast of the European Energy Performance of Buildings supports the improvement of buildings energy performance and introduce...

Bridging the gap between predicted and real energy consumptions in buildings has become a crucial task in the building energy research community. In this context, numerous studies confirmed occupant behaviour to be a key driver of uncertainty that impacts building energy performance and environmental indoor conditions. In particular, occupant's act...

In Europe, some historical cities have more than 50% of buildings dated from before 1920. Nowadays, these buildings faces challenges when adapted to the current necessities of livability, environmental and economical sustainability. Literature demonstrates that occupants’ comfort perception and consequent behavior affect buildings’ energy efficienc...

The human interaction with the building is a key cause of uncertainty when predicting energy consumption in buildings. Building occupants affect building energy use directly and indirectly by interacting with building energy systems, for example, by adjusting thermostats, switching lights on/off, using electrical devices and opening/closing windows...

The European Union (EU) has committed to lower GHG emissions for a 20% with respect to 1990 by 2020, reaching an 80% reduction by 2050. Renewable energy and buildings retrofitting will be key measures in cutting environmental impacts according to the new climate targets. The development of these energy-efficiency measures requires significant finan...

The acknowledgment of occupant behaviour as a key driver of uncertainty in building energy analysis is today well established. Existing literature highlights the need of carefully addressing human-related interactions with the building envelope and systems. In response to this need, researchers have proposed a number of stochastic models that aim a...

Occupant behaviour has been shown to be one of the key driving factors of uncertainty in prediction of energy consumption in buildings. Building occupants affect building energy use directly and indirectly by interacting with building energy systems such as adjusting temperature set-points, switching lights on/off, using electrical devices and open...

Occupant behaviour has been shown to be one of the key driving factors of uncertainty in prediction of energy consumption in buildings. Building occupants affect building energy use directly and indirectly by interacting with building energy systems such as adjusting temperature set-points, switching lights on/off, using electrical devices and open...

In all world regions urbanisation growth is expected to continue to 2050 and consequently urban areas have a key role in the transition to a more sustainable future. To reduce cities footprint, long-term strategies involving actions across all the main urban sectors (buildings, transport, industry and supply) are required. Therefore, methodologies...

This study presents results from an interdisciplinary survey assessing contextual and behavioral factors driving occupants’ interaction with building and systems in offices located across three different Mediterranean climates in Turin (Northern), Perugia (Central), and Rende (Southern) Italy. The survey instrument is grounded in an interdisciplina...

Worldwide, the building sector accounts for 40% of total energy consumption. In Europe, where more than 14% of buildings dates from before 1920, reaching over 50% in some cities, historical buildings are fundamental to reach the current ambitious emissions’ reduction targets. Today, the energy retrofit of historical buildings is relevant not only f...

The role of building occupants in energy-savings opportunities is attracting the attention of professionals and scientists with the purpose of developing innovative and effective strategies for energy efficiency in buildings. People’s awareness about energy consumption, and the “green” attitudes of building occupants, have been acknowledged to be r...

Urban energy consumptions growth has become an urgent topic that requires solutions for significantly reduce carbon emission in the next decades. This paper aims in exploring the integration of building performance improvement and low carbon district heat technological choices by considering the upgrade of conversion technologies, efficiency and th...

This study investigates the use of an evaluation model able to estimate the possibilities of reducing energy consumption and emissions of the building sector exploiting renewable energy sources. Specific attention is given to the use of ground source heat pumps in the urban context, proposing an ex-ante evaluation of different scenarios to identify...

Extended literature reviews confirm that the accurate evaluation of energy-related occupant behaviour is a key factor for bridging the gap between predicted and actual energy performance of buildings. One of the key energy-related human behaviours is window control behaviour that has been modelled by different probabilistic modelling approaches. In...

Building upon the implementation of EBPD recast in the large majority of EU Member States, this paper studied how far cost-optimality is from the Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB) performance level for an Italian Reference Hotel (RH) undergoing major renovations. The energy performances of retrofit options for the RH were compared with the Italian...

Finding the most appropriate matching between envelope features and HVAC system configurations in function of different climates results fundamental for minimizing buildings’ energy consumptions. The research aims at presenting the most energy-performing HVAC system configurations for high-performing buildings. Different configurations were modeled...

In order to optimize building energy consumption, Member States will have to establish minimum efficiency requirements for systems, and promote the introduction of active control system in new constructions or major renovations. Energy saving, plant efficiency and environmental sustainability are also factors delineating smart buildings. Interestin...

Occupant behaviour is known to be one of the key sources of uncertainty in the prediction of building energy use. Extended literature reviews linked the large performance gaps between residential buildings with same properties and similar climate conditions to the way occupants interact with the building envelope and systems. Furthermore, in the la...

In terms of existing buildings’ retrofit, historical and non-residential buildings clearly represent two challenging categories. In historical buildings, due to architectural constraints, acting on the technical side is often the only way to reduce consumptions, while non-residential buildings usually require simultaneous production of hot and chil...

To meet the European targets for achieving high-performing buildings, the refurbishment of the existing building stock and, in particular, of historical buildings represents a great challenge. The research aims at identifying the most energy-effective HVAC configuration for retrofitting historical hotels in Mediterranean area, where the objective i...

The increasing phenomena related to urbanization and human impact on landscape leads to re-think the future of the cities. As well as in buildings, a careful design, the use of renewable sources and the use of advanced technical solutions, to achieve a significant energy savings, are strategies not sufficient to define a “Post-Carbon city” or a “Po...

"Historical evidence indicates that when man first considered settlements and the order pertaining the rein, he showed concern for the conservation of this order and of monuments" [1]. Today, the conservation of historical buildings involves also the necessity to adapt them to the current lifestyles and legislation in order to maintain them, wherev...

Urban districts should evolve towards a more sustainable infrastructure and greener energy carriers. The utmost challenge is the smart integration and control, within the existing infrastructure, of new information and energy technologies (such as sensors, appliances, electric and thermal power and storage devices) that are able to provide multi-se...

Energy efficiency policies require the implementation of strategies to reduce energy use during the operation of integrated urban water systems. In Italy, the overall amount of electrical energy consumption for water systems is close to 2.3% of the total national consumption, thus efforts to minimize costs are crucial. This paper analyzes a case st...

Urban and Regional Integrated Energy Planning is crucial to define transition strategies toward sustainable development and post-carbon cities; particularly, in the built environment sector which is one of the main responsible for energy consumption and carbon emissions. The paper aims at offering a systematic review of existing urban and regional...

Researches on reducing building originated yearly energy demand are among the top issues in every country. Nowadays, lots of scientific researches were performed in Mediterranean countries like in others in order to designate different methods to improve the energy performance of the buildings. Turkey is one of the representative countries of Medit...

This research presents a comprehensive cost-optimal approach for existing building retrofits. The approach incorporates energy efficiency measures related to building envelope, building energy systems and renewable energy, all at once. Moreover, the cost-optimal calculation scope is extended through integration of occupant behaviour. The comprehens...

Temporary free link to the full-text (until March 19th): https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1USsO_6zgtHsM3 In the forthcoming European low-carbon energy system, the building stock plays a major role in the demand sector. Therefore, in order to develop robust scenario analysis towards the success of the low-carbon goals, a trustful characterization of...

The increasing attention for energy efficiency in buildings stimulates the expansion of “Smart buildings”. In offices and homes, building automation systems are suited to individuals, foresighting their needs. Occupants’ compliance is a fundamental requirement for a successful adoption of building automation systems. An important warning regards th...

In questi anni, la transizione verso nuovi modelli urbani “low carbon” ha incrementato lo sviluppo di nuovi processi di pianificazione energetica. Uno dei punti essenziali per sostenere lo sviluppo di piani energetici consiste in una corretta elaborazione di dati di natura eterogenea. Questo articolo introduce una metodologia per caratterizzare il...

Among co-benefits that energy efficiency interventions in buildings entail, occupants’ improved comfort is one of the most acknowledged. In this study, a monetary valuation of improvements in comfort conditions in accommodation facilities was carried out. With an interdisciplinary approach to the problem, the evaluation was two-folded, aimed at mon...

In Europe the building sector is responsible for more than 40 % of the total energy consumption and for 36 % of the CO2 emissions. To avoid a further increase of these values, the European Union decided to issue several Directives in order to encourage the reduction of energy consumptions and to promote the use of renewable energy sources. In parti...

Once upon a time, more specifically during medieval time, universities were meant to be the places for teaching and shaping the elite administrators’ class of the regnant in charge. With the industrial revolution, professors were asked to improve the efficiency of the machines and the new production systems. During the Second World War, academia wa...