Colours and building thermal balance: the impact of coating colour on energy loads

Solar-assisted heat pumps systems for domestic hot water production in small energy communities

Abstract The paper investigates the energy performances of several configurations of solar-assisted heat pumps equipped with photovoltaic (PV) and photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) panels as well as solar thermal collectors for domestic hot water production. The systems are sized to serve small aggregates of users assumed as micro energy communities in low housing density context in the South of Italy. Electricity storages are also considered to smooth the interaction with the electric grid. Several indices are defined and calculated to guide toward a correct sizing, to check users’ satisfaction and to assess primary energy savings. The results show how the energy consumption from the analysed sys…

Efficientamento energetico di utenze domestiche nelle isole minori italiane

L’articolo tratta l’efficientamento energetico nel settore residenziale delle piccole isole non connesse alla rete di trasmissione elettrica nazionale. L’analisi ha riguardato un’utenza tipo dell’Isola di Lampedusa, individuata sulla base dei dati statistici ISTAT, di cui sono stati acquisiti i dati di consumo da bolletta e monitorati i consumi elettrici al fine di selezionare gli interventi di retrofit più adeguati. Fra questi vi sono: la sostituzione degli scalda-acqua elettrici esistenti e il ricorso a tecnologie di Building Automation Control system (BACs) per la gestione dell’impianto di illuminazione e di altri carichi elettrici flessibili. La valutazione dei risparmi conseguibili è s…

Solar and Heat Pump Systems for Domestic Hot Water Production on a Small Island: The Case Study of Lampedusa

The achievement of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, related to energy and resource use, is a critical issue for small and insulated communities. In many minor islands, solar energy is not correctly exploited, and electrical heaters are connected to weak grids with very a high share of generation by fossil fuels. As a consequence, there is the necessity to assess the potential and the suitability of diffusion of alternative systems to avoid dependency on the electrical grid and reduce carbon emissions. This paper aims to evaluate the technical and economic performances of some alternative systems exploiting renewable energy for domestic hot water production. Four different syste…

On the Impact of Heat Pumps Electric Load on the Power Consumption of Lampedusa

The present paper reports the results of a simulation study regarding the impact of the adoption of heat pumps for domestic hot water production in the island of Lampedusa (Italy). In the study, it has been assumed to replace electric storage water heaters with heat pumps at every dwelling of the about four thousand domestic end-users of the island and, in addition, to control the heat pump operation in order to enhance some parameters that characterize the quality of the generation and distribution system of the island (power peak, energy losses and voltage drop). According to the results of the simulations, while the replacement of electric storage water heaters with heat pumps is able to…

BUILDING INTEGRATED SOLAR THERMAL DESIGN: CHARACTERISATION AND ASSESSMENT OF PERFORMANCES OF A LOW COST SOLAR WALL.

A decentralized load control architecture for smart energy consumption in small islands

Abstract In this paper we propose the adoption of Overgrid, a new decentralized load control architecture, for balancing the energy production variations introduced with the adoption of renewable sources, facilitating and improving the smart energy retrofit. The system is presented and applied for managing the aggregated daily load profile of a community of domestic end-users in the island of Lampedusa, Italy, exploiting the load profiles gathered in a real measurement campaign. The Overgrid Demand Response (DR) architecture is used for managing the residential flexible loads, estimating the aggregated power demand without any centralized server and creating a virtual “community” of smart b…