Building Automation and Control Systems and performance optimization: A framework for analysis

The pressing global environmental issues are fostering a rapid change in the energy and sustainability policies for the built environment. New paradigms are emerging, such as “Nearly Zero Energy Building” (nZEB), and resource efficiency is progressively becoming a crucial topic in the building sector, implying an appropriate consideration of performance over the whole life cycle. However, empirical evidences show how, very often, the gap between the predicted (design phase) and measured (operation phase) performance is very large, due to errors committed during all the phases of building life cycle. This performance gap determines a problem of credibility in the building industry and, more in general, in sustainability oriented practices. Therefore, design and operation practices should evolve in order to be able to cope with performance uncertainty determined, for example, by evolution of climate conditions, variability of behavioural patterns and performance degradation of technological components. For these reasons, a framework for the analysis of the potential of Building Automation and Control Systems for performance optimization is proposed. This framework aims to highlight, in particular, the possibility of establishing an effective methodological continuity among building performance simulation, control and data analytics, not immediately recognizable in current practices. Further, it aims to envision the possibility of creating a unified methodological approach, which could guarantee multiple feed-backs from measured data, useful for the evolution, first of all, of design and operation practices but also, more in general, of the whole value chain of the building sector.