The Role of Local Administrations in the Energy Retrofit of Public Buildings: a Case Study

Abstract

Recent regulations, and related incentives, concerning urban sustainability issued at European and national level place particular attention on improving the energy and environmental performance of buildings. In this sense, a particular focus has been placed on public buildings (offices, schools, hospitals, etc..), being these centers of gravitation of social life. Among the EU strategies on this matter is an initiative called Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP), through which local administrators, based on the knowledge of their territory, are called to establish appropriate energy strategies and commit to achieving their targets within the timeframe set by the EU. The present paper contribute to this specific topic by means of a case study concerning the retrofit of a Sicilian office building, for which a comparison between the actual energy consumption and CO2 emissions, based on bill reading, and those consequent to the implementation of some SECAP selected energy improvement intervention, estimated through building dynamic simulation, was performed, taking into account also the economic aspects.