The cost-optimal analysis of a multistory building in the Mediterranean area: Financial and macroeconomic projections

Cost-optimal analysis was pointed out in the 2010/31 European Directive as a tool to evaluate the achievable building energy performance levels as a function of the corresponding costs. These analyses can be carried out by a financial projection for private investors and a macroeconomic approach to establish the minimal energy performance levels. Consequently, the financial projection provides different results that could stimulate private investors toward other cost-optimal solutions that do not match the minimal energy performance levels. For this purpose, both the projections were analyzed in the BEopt environment, developed by NREL, on a multistory building located in two contrasting climatic zones of the Mediterranean area, one cold and the other warm, highlighting the differences. The cost-optimal solutions were identified by a parametric study involving measures that affect thermal losses and solar gains, whereas the air-conditioning plant was left unchanged in order to include a fraction of renewable energy in the coverage of the building demands. Results showed that both the projections produced the same cost-optimal solutions, however, the latter matches the building designed to fulfill the minimal energy performance levels only in the cold climate. Conversely, noticeable deviations were detected in the warm location, therefore minimal energy performance levels should be revised, with preference for less insulated opaque surfaces and better performing glazing systems. Moreover, the macroeconomic scenario returns a more limited distance between the minimal energy performance levels and the cost-optimal solutions, therefore, it is far from the real economic frame sustained by private investors.