Abstract
There is a dearth of data and evidence in the literature to assist the industry in determining the most appropriate strategies for large-scale deep retrofitting of non-domestic buildings to achieve healthy low-energy buildings. Support to decision-making and enabling deep retrofit of these buildings requires approaches such as long-term renovation strategies and building renovation passports. This paper compares the impact of single-step and staged retrofit approaches to improve the building energy performance of an existing building to a nearly zero-energy building (nZEB) level with improved comfort and optimal life-cycle costs. The novel developed methodological framework is applied to a university building built in 1975 (partially retrofit in 2005) that is expected to be completely retrofitted in 2020. A set of scenarios are analysed for the case study building using a combination of retrofit measures towards achieving the cost-optimal non-dominated solutions (Pareto front) based on multiple-objective optimisation for the decision-maker. The results highlight that a single-step retrofit can achieve a reduction of up to 60% in primary energy consumption and reduction of 38% in discomfort hours. The findings also indicate that nZEB performance with the primary energy consumption in the range of ~ 75–90 kWh m−2 year−1 (with plug loads) can be achieved cost-effectively through single-step deep retrofit for a university building. Results also highlighted the inability to achieve higher energy performance or improved comfort in two stages relative to completing a deep retrofit in a single stage. The results aim to contribute to the existing debate on the economic and environmental feasibility in realising long-term renovation strategies for existing non-domestic buildings, especially university buildings.
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Abbreviations
- BEC:
-
Building energy communities
- CvRMSE:
-
Coefficient of variation of the root mean square error
- DCV:
-
Demand control ventilation
- EPBD:
-
Energy Performance of Building Directive
- EPC:
-
Energy Performance Certificate
- GA:
-
Genetic algorithm
- HVAC:
-
Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning
- IAQ:
-
Indoor air quality
- IEQ:
-
Indoor environmental quality
- LCC:
-
Life-cycle cost
- MOO:
-
Multi-objective optimisation
- MV:
-
Mechanical ventilation
- MVHR:
-
Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery
- NMBE:
-
Normalised mean bias error
- NSGA:
-
Non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm
- NV:
-
Natural ventilation
- nZEB:
-
Nearly zero-energy building
- OH&P:
-
Overhead and profit
- PV:
-
Photovoltaic
- SEAI:
-
Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland
- VAT:
-
Value added tax
- DH:
-
Percentage of discomfort hours [%]
- g:
-
Solar transmittance [−]
- IC:
-
Investment cost [€]
- LOR:
-
Light output ratio [−]
- MR:
-
Maintenance and repair cost [€]
- NPV:
-
Net present value [€ m−2]
- OE:
-
Operational energy cost [€]
- PEC:
-
Primary energy consumption per unit of conditioned area [kWh m−2 year−1]
- Re:
-
Replacement cost [€]
- SHGC:
-
Solar heat gain coefficient [−]
- U:
-
Thermal transmittance [W m−2 K−1]
- VT:
-
Visual transmittance [−]
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This work is financially supported by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) (Grant No. 13/CDA/2200).
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Zuhaib, S., Goggins, J. Assessing evidence-based single-step and staged deep retrofit towards nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEB) using multi-objective optimisation. Energy Efficiency 12, 1891–1920 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-019-09812-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-019-09812-z