Design and Energy Performance of a Very Low Energy Building

Total energy consumption of office buildings has a relevant weight in Europe, and the trend shows a consistent growth in long term period. The reference values for energy consumption in this building sector is about 33 kWh/m3 year for heating and an average value of 45 kWh/m3 year for cooling. Other 16 kWh/m3 year can be considered as additional electricity energy consumption used for equipments and artificial lighting. For new buildings, the minimum consumption required for heating amounts to 27 - 43 kWh/m3. That range can be referred to a middle quality performance in current Italian energy labelling system (Class D). In addition to the energy certification required by the national regulation, nowadays in the real estate market the application of rating systems to assess the environmental quality of the buildings is taking place. LEED certification, for example, was recently introduced in the international real estate sector and was customized in Italy. The case study is a “H” shape building, located in the middle suburb in the North-East of the city core of Milan. The office building is located in an area typified by the urban fabric of the 20th century. The building design integrates the energy issues using technologies to achieve a strong innovation in the architectural project. Dynamic energy simulations were carried out during the design phase in order to optimize the energy performance of the H-Building. The results show that primary energy consumption for heating is about 6 kWh/m3 year, and for cooling is about 5 kWh/m3 year. The aim of the building is to obtain the label Class A in the regional regulation and an international LEED certification.