Development of a Methodology for Energy Diagnosis and Performance Assessment of office buildings

In this work, a methodology has been described for the energy diagnosis and performance assessment of office buildings. The initial activity is focused on the estimation of energy consumption for different energy uses in the building and to identify the first classification according to the current Italian building energy standards. In detail, this stage primarily describes the state of building envelope by analyzing the different materials used in construction and the structural solutions adopted. Subsequently, an overview on the building envelope technology and the energy systems through a complete survey has been made on energy-consuming equipments and a detailed analysis has been carried out on various technical elements. For each energy devices category, a general description, specific technological/performance details and critical observations have been provided. Subsequently the profiles for different categories of equipment and systems have been identified. Further a detailed analysis has been made on the measured (actual) energy consumption based on energy bills for electricity and natural gas consumption. Based on the analysis, a preliminary estimation has been made on the energy consumption for heating, cooling, lighting and other end uses. The results have then been compared with the estimated primary energy demand for different energy uses, performed by the calculation procedures defined by computer simulations of building through software calculations in dynamic regime. Finally, the methodology has been applied to a case-study office building.