Passive Strategies for Building Retrofitting: Performances Analysis and Incentive Policies for the Iranian Scenario

• Published in: Energies (Basel) 2022-03, Vol.15 (5), p.1628
• Main Authors: Spanodimitriou, Yorgos, Ciampi, Giovanni, Scorpio, Michelangelo, Mokhtari, Niloufar, Teimoorzadeh, Ainoor, Laffi, Roberta, Sibilio, Sergio
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alternative energy sources; building energy efficiency; Carbon dioxide; carbon dioxide equivalent emissions; Climate; Cold; Design; Economic analysis; Emissions; Energy conservation; Energy consumption; Energy demand; Energy efficiency; Green buildings; Literature reviews; Natural gas; Natural gas reserves; Obsolescence; office building refurbishment; Office buildings; Operating costs; Orientation; Payback periods; Performance evaluation; Polyesters; Renewable resources; Retrofitting; second-skin facade; simple payback period; Simulation; tensile facade; Thermal energy; Ventilation
• ISSN: 1996-1073; 1996-1073
• DOI: 10.3390/en15051628

A large amount of the Iranian energy demand is related to the building sector, mainly due to its obsolescence. In this paper, a second-skin system has been implemented as a retrofit action for an office building, evaluating the effect of a tensile material as second-skin in terms of primary energy saving, carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, and simple payback period. The analysis was carried out through numerical simulations across a whole year and for four Iranian cities (Tabriz, Teheran, Yazd, and Bandar Abbas) in four different climates (cold, temperate, hot-dry, and hot-wet), and with the building aligned at either north-south or east-west. Moreover, an economic analysis was carried out suggesting different incentive policies to promote building energy refurbishment. The simulation results highlighted a favorable orientation for buildings in Iran, suggesting a guideline for new constructions. Indeed, the best results were achieved for an east-west orientation of the building (up to a primary energy saving of 13.6% and reduction of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions of 45.5 MgCO2,eq, in Yazd), with a decrease of the annual specific total (cooling and thermal) energy demand of 37.9 kWh/m2/year. The simple payback period values were also lower in the east-west orientation than the north-south one.