Energy smart management and performance monitoring of a NZEB Analysis of an application

The NZEB (Nearly Zero Energy Building) spreading with its reduced energy performance is one of the main purposes of the Directive 2010/31/EU. New buildings design and existing buildings renovation have been the subjects of discussion to trace the way towards achieving a high level of energy performance of the entire European building stock. However, in order to keep long-term optimal results, it is necessary to plan a correct management both of thermal systems and of passive climate control. There is still a small amount of data available about the effectiveness of the measures adopted for energy saving in the new design to demonstrate the maintaining of the performance. Therefore, it could be useful to broaden experimental monitoring campaigns, in order to better address the design choices in the next future. As a contribution to increasing knowledge about the intelligent management of an NZEB, the control systems and operating procedures of thermal plants of a case-study (new single house building) are discussed, based on simulation results and long-term measurements. The control procedures for internal environmental conditions and plant systems, aiming at maintaining both indoor comfort conditions and an efficient management of energy consumption, are described. The analyses quantitatively demonstrate how the correct energy management can significantly reduce the actual consumption, compared to the estimated one. Moreover, the need of the adaptation of the home automation management systems to the actual use of the building is put in evidence. Their smart use in fact guarantees the expected performance, and in some cases can improve it, by tailoring the energy behaviour of the building to the users' specific needs. In the case study, the energy performance of the building, calculated by means of the national methodology, satisfies the NZEB target. The long term monitoring reveals its potential as a Positive Energy Building (PEB) because it produces more energy than its needs. The important support of these analyses shows that it is useful to get a wider number of case studies in order to expand the knowledge of the effective NZEB energy behaviour and to put in evidence smart choices for obtaining the maximum long-lasting energy performance. (C) 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd.