Exergy as a measure of sustainable retrofitting of buildings

Fernandez Bandera, Carlos, Fei Munoz Mardones, Ana, Du, Hu ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1637-0626, Echevarria Trueba, Juan and Ramos Ruiz, German 2018. Exergy as a measure of sustainable retrofitting of buildings. Energies 11 (11) , 3139. 10.3390/en11113139

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Abstract

This study presents a novel optimization methodology for choosing optimal building retrofitting strategies based on the concept of exergy analysis. The study demonstrates that the building exergy analysis may open new opportunities in the design of an optimal retrofit solution despite being a theoretical approach based on the high performance of a Carnot reverse cycle. This exergy-based solution is different from the one selected through traditional efficient retrofits where minimizing energy consumption is the primary selection criteria. The new solution connects the building with the reference environment, which acts as “an unlimited sink or unlimited sources of energy”, and it adapts the building to maximize the intake of energy resources from the reference environment. The building hosting the School of Architecture at the University of Navarra has been chosen as the case study building. The unique architectural appearance and bespoke architectural characteristics of the building limit the choices of retrofitting solutions; therefore, retrofitting solutions on the façade, roof, roof skylight and windows are considered in multi-objective optimization using the jEPlus package. It is remarkable that different retrofitting solutions have been obtained for energy-driven and exergy-driven optimization, respectively. Considering the local contexts and all possible reference environments for the building, three “unlimited sinks or unlimited sources of energy” are selected for the case study building to explore exergy-driven optimization: the external air, the ground in the surrounding area and the nearby river. The evidence shows that no matter which reference environment is chosen, an identical envelope retrofitting solution has been obtained

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Architecture
Additional Information:	This paper is published under the terms of the CC-BY licence.
Publisher:	MDPI
ISSN:	1996-1073
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	14 November 2018
Date of Acceptance:	10 November 2018
Last Modified:	06 May 2023 04:21
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/116686

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