Pathway to Zero-Emission Buildings: Energy and Economic Comparison of Different Demand Coverage by RES for a New Office Building

Raniero Sannino, Laura Ronchetti () and Silvia Di Turi
Additional contact information
Raniero Sannino: Department Unit of Energy Efficiency, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), Via Anguillarese 301, 00123 Rome, Italy
Laura Ronchetti: Department Unit of Energy Efficiency, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), Via Anguillarese 301, 00123 Rome, Italy
Silvia Di Turi: Department Unit of Energy Efficiency, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), Via Anguillarese 301, 00123 Rome, Italy

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 24, 1-17

Abstract: In recent years, energy efficiency and the decarbonization of the building sector have become key goals in Europe. However, substantial efforts are still needed to support the increase in on-site energy generation from renewable energy sources (RES) and to phase-out the use of fossil fuels. Moreover, this challenge must be backed by financial mechanisms provided by Member States. In this context, the aim of this work is to investigate different RES generation layouts for a reference office building in Italy and to determine whether it can achieve the goal of a net zero energy building (net ZEB) or a positive energy building (PEB). Different layouts are analyzed from both energy and economic perspectives through dynamic energy simulation, considering different financial schemes, such as “net metering” (SSP) and “premium tariff” (RID). The results show that the energy performance improves due to the size and the characteristics of the PV system. However, the avoided operating costs due to RID increase linearly, while the economic benefits provided by the SSP scheme encourage an appropriate design of the renewable energy system, avoiding oversizing for economic profitability.

Keywords: zero-emission buildings; zero energy buildings; positive energy buildings; net metering scheme; premium tariff; renewable energy sources; building energy modeling; investment costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/24/10837/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/24/10837/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:24:p:10837-:d:1541308

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().