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Energy Procedia 30 (2012) 1099 – 1109

SHC 2012

Office buildings cooling need in the Italian climatic context:

assessing the performances of typical envelopes
Simone Ferrari , Valentina Zanotto
Department of Building Environment Science and Technology (BEST), Politecnico di Milano, Via Bonardi 3, 20133 Milano, Italy

Abstract

This study assesses the cooling thermal energy need of office buildings that can represent typical cases within the
Italian context, in particular defined by the envelope solutions that belong to three main construction ages, including
new solutions that meet the current requirements for the envelope thermal properties.
The results show that the large-glazed and lighter solutions (also newly built, consistent with the recent standards)
reveal the worst behavior, while the buildings characterized by the lowest needs are the old conventional ones, even
though they do not comply with the recent requirements for the envelope components. The same cooling
performances are achieved by newly built insulated envelopes if they are “conventionally-glazed”, but only when a
strategy to loose the heat stored by the massive internal surfaces is adopted.

©
© 2012
2012 The Authors.
Published byPublished by Elsevier
Elsevier Ltd. Ltd.and/or
Selection Open access under CC under
peer-review BY-NC-ND license.
responsibility of PSE AG
Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of PSE AG
Keywords: Cooling thermal need ; building envelope ; mitigation strategies

1. Introduction

A key factor in the energy policies of the developed Countries is the control of the demand and a lot
has been done in particular concerning the performances of the building stock, which, according to
Refs. [1] and [2], is responsible for about 40% of the total energy consumption in these areas, mostly due
to active climatization. Moreover, active cooling systems are a relatively recent technology and the related
energy consumption is growing extremely fast everywhere, both because of the users’ higher expectations
regarding the indoor environmental conditions and because of the generally increasing temperature and
noise in the urban areas.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 02 23 99 94 83; fax: +39 02 23 99 94 84.

E-mail address: simone.ferrari @polimi.it.

1876-6102 © 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of PSE AG
doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2012.11.123
1100 Simone Ferrari and Valentina Zanotto / Energy Procedia 30 (2012) 1099 – 1109

This study assesses, by the means of dynamic simulation performed with TRNSYS 16 [3], the behavior
of typical office buildings within the Italian context. Since office buildings are provided with high internal
heat loads and since Italy is mostly characterized by warm climates, the study is focused on the cooling
thermal energy need related to different envelope solutions. Moreover, the effectiveness of some
mitigation strategies on the demand of the different building types is analyzed in detail.

2. Office building cooling performance

The reported study refers to one simple building geometry, considered with the four main orientations
(North, South, East and West), placed in seven climatic locations and characterized by five different
envelope solutions.
The building model is a simple block with rectangular plan (30 m x 12 m), with a first unconditioned
floor (parking area, technical rooms) and 5 upper floors divided into a central distribution area and two
side volumes containing the conditioned office rooms (6 identical cellular space per floor and side,
characterized by a net surface of 25 m2 and a net volume of 67.50 m3). The openings are located
exclusively on the two main façades in order, by rotating the model, to appreciate the effects due to the
different orientations.
The yearly thermal energy need for cooling is calculated according to a hourly occupancy schedules for
office buildings (i.e. from 07:00 to 17:00 during the weekdays) derived by Ref. [4], implemented within
the Italian Ref. [5] for detailed evaluations. The internal heat load profiles are derived according to the
same standards: the resulting global heat gains (20 W/m2 during the occupied time) have been divided into
the different possible sources (i.e. occupancy, artificial lighting and electric equipments) with weights
derived from Ref. [6]. Ventilation is assumed according to Ref. [7], which suggests the discharge rates
needed to comply with the requirements of indoor air quality: for a standard quality level, a constant
infiltration rate of 0.20 h-1 and an additional natural ventilation rate of 1.70 h-1 during the occupancy hours
are consistently adopted.
In common practice climatization systems are regulated according to air temperature sensors and set-
points. However, since comfort requirements [7] are expressed in terms of operative temperature, the
case-study building climatization is managed according to this parameter. In this way the possible air
temperature set-point adjustments usually performed by the occupants to compensate discomfortable
radiant temperatures are taken into account. The set-point operative temperature, according to Ref. [7] for
normal level of expectations, is set to 26°C constant.

2.1. Climatic context

Since Italy is characterized by a wide range of climatic conditions, officially defined in relation to the
heating degree-days (HDD) values reported in Ref. [8] for the main locations, seven cities have been
chosen in order to represent the national climate through regular intervals of HDD. The selected cities are
Bolzano (HDD 2791), Milano (HDD 2404), Trieste (HDD 2102), Pescara (HDD 1718), Roma
(HDD 1415), Napoli (HDD 1034) and Palermo (HDD 751).
Moreover, since the hourly dynamic simulations have been performed according to the TRY (test
reference year) climatic files from the database provided within TRNSYS [3], these climatic data have
been adopted to elaborate proper cooling degree-day (CDD) values for the seven chosen locations,
consistently with the energy performance assessment focused on the cooling side. Differently from the
common calculation method, the reference outdoor temperature taken into account in these CDD
elaborations is the sol-air temperature, calculated for a horizontal surface with common absorptivity level
 Simone Ferrari and Valentina Zanotto / Energy Procedia 30 (2012) 1099 – 1109 1101

(0.60) [9]. In this way it was possible to account in first analysis for the different weight of the solar
radiation on the building cooling demand. The resulting CDD values are reported in Table 1.

Table 1. Cooling degree-day values calculated for the selected locations

Milano Bolzano Trieste Pescara Roma Napoli Palermo

(MI) (BZ) (TS) (PE) (RM) (NA) (PA)
Cooling degree-days 159 206 313 325 390 436 643

2.2. Building construction

The building constructions differ according to the vertical envelope characteristics, defined in terms of
window percentage and solution for the opaque walls. The internal structures remain always the same
(hollow bricks walls and concrete and masonry slabs), while the horizontal envelope components (again
simple concrete and masonry solutions) only change regarding the presence and thickness of a possible
insulation layer, which depends on the reference U-value standards for the different locations. The case-
studies are defined to be representative of likely practices from three main construction ages: newly built,
1960/80 and very old. For every period “conventional” envelope solutions have been taken into account,
with masonry external walls and a window surface equal to 1/8 of the floor area, which is the Italian
praxis to guarantee natural ventilation and lighting and which corresponds to the 23% of the related net
façade. Moreover, alternative more glazed and lighter solutions have been considered for the
contemporary and 1960/80 ages.
The new buildings have envelope constructions that comply with the current limits regarding the
thermal characteristics: the U-values reported in Ref. [10] for the opaque and transparent elements, and
the periodic U-values for the opaque components prescribed by Ref. [11]. The new conventional building
has vertical walls characterized by two layers of high density hollow bricks and an in-between insulation
layer with variable thickness according to the local U-value requirements (between 0.33 W/m2K in MI,
BZ, TS and 0.47 W/m2K in PA). The windows are double glazing with aluminium frames, with overall U-
values that comply with the local limits (between 1.77 W/m2K in MI, BZ, TS and 2.81 W/m2K in PA) and
solar heat gain coefficient around 0.62. The new glazed building is characterized by windows that entirely
cover the main façades, while the secondary exposures are covered by walls with two layers of hollow
bricks and an in between layer again dimensioned to obtain the same U-values as the new conventional
walls. In order to consider an environmentally attentive design, the unfavorable effects due to the large
transparent surfaces are compensated by using glasses that have U-values about 30% lower than the
prescribed ones (between 1.28 W/m2K in MI, BZ, TS and 2.16 W/m2K in PA) and a solar heat gain
coefficient around 0.40.
The second period is the one characterized by the fastest urbanization in Italy, when most of the
buildings currently used as offices were built [12,13]: between 1960 and 1980. Since recent studies [13]
showed that more than half of the office buildings from earlier than 1970 (before the first national energy
savings regulation) have been undertaken renovation of the original windows (single pane) with double
pane elements, in this work the 1960/80 buildings are characterized by double glazing with aluminium
frames, for a global U-value of 2.91 W/m2K and a solar heat gain coefficient of 0.76. The opaque
elements constructions don’t change according to the location and are derived by Ref. [14] as described
next. The 60/80 conventional building walls consist in two layers of hollow bricks with a middle air layer,
for a U-value of 0.98 W/m2K. The 60/80 glazed building has windows that cover the largest part of the
1102 Simone Ferrari and Valentina Zanotto / Energy Procedia 30 (2012) 1099 – 1109

main façades, except for an opaque sill of 1.10 m, with a resulting glazing percentage of 63%. The opaque
part is a sandwich wall, with finishing boards and a 10 cm insulation layer, for a U-value of 0.36 W/m2K.
Finally, the third age regards the old conventional buildings, characterized by more traditional
constructions. According to the same assumptions made for the previous construction age, the windows of
the old conventional building are double glasses with wooden frames, bringing to a resulting U-value of
2.73 W/m2K and a solar heat gain coefficient of 0.76. In Italy, buildings from earlier than 1919 (which is
the statistical threshold to distinguish the very old buildings) are characterized by masonry walls of either
full bricks or some kind of stone, depending on the most diffuse material in the considered location [12].
In this study heavyweight walls with a thickness of 50 cm are considered: a full brick construction is
assigned in the Northern and Adriatic regions (Milano, Bolzano, Trieste and Pescara), while a tuff
construction is assigned in the Southern regions (Napoli and Palermo) and in the city of Rome.
The overall envelope thermal characteristics are summarized in Table 2.

Table 2. Thermal characteristics of the overall envelope for the different solutions

New Conv. New Glazed 60/80 Conv. 60/80 Glazed Old Conv.
U-value [W/m2 K] MI/BZ/TS: 0.47 MI/BZ/TS: 0.74 1.30 1.42 MI/BZ/TS/PE: 1.33
PE/RM: 0.53 PE/RM: 0.83 RM/NA/PA: 1.28
RM: 0.59 RM: 0.99
RM: 0.69 RM: 1.19

Aeric mass [kg/m2] 284 201 276 139 MI/BZ/TS/PE: 612

RM/NA/PA: 536

Heat capacity [kJ/(m2 K)] 255 161 241 116 MI/BZ/TS/PE: 543
RM/NA/PA: 417

2.3. Performance evaluation

In order to facilitate the reading of the results, the cooling demand values are represented according to
the cooling degree days characterizing the different locations: in this way it is also possible to understand
what is the correlation between the thermal energy demand and the reference climate (Fig. 1).
As expected, the correlation between demand and cooling degree-days is clear and can be safely
approximated to a linear one in all cases except for the new glazed solution. Even if the effect of climate
is very clear, the slope of the correlation equations tends to change depending on the considered exposure:
where there is less incident solar radiation (i.e. North), in fact, the slope is significantly lower. The reason
is that the cooling demand is predominantly due to the heat gains, which can be sorted in the internal ones
that are not climate-related, and in the solar ones: if the second type is less relevant, than there is very low
correlation to the climatic parameter. Obviously, the glazed buildings are always characterized by higher
cooling demands, due to the higher entering solar radiation: in these cases, in fact, the slope differences
due to exposure are much easier to see. Moreover, the new glazed solution reveals a lower slope than the
60/80 glazed one, due to the lower solar heat gain coefficient of the considered windows that allows better
performances in the locations with higher cooling degree-days, where the solar radiation becomes the
largest component of the overall heat gains. Another remark concerns the offsets that separate the
correlation curves of the various envelope solutions, and that characterize the best and worst performing
cases. Among the conventional buildings, for instance, the older ones (60/80 and old) show the lowest
demands, while the new one is characterized by the same slope but values that are about 10 kWh/m2
 Simone Ferrari and Valentina Zanotto / Energy Procedia 30 (2012) 1099 – 1109 1103

higher: regardless for its heat capacity, in fact, the presence of the insulation layers in the opaque envelope
elements does not allow the heat gains to be lost by transmission as effectively as they would be without
insulation.

Cooling demand – Base case

Northern exposure Southern exposure
160 160

140 140
Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]

Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]

2

2
120 120

100 100

80 80

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Cooling Degree-Days Cooling Degree-Days

Eastern exposure Western exposure

160 160

140 140
Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]

Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]

2

120 120

100 100

80 80

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Cooling Degree-Days Cooling Degree-Days

New Conventional New Glazed 60/80 Conventional 60/80 Glazed Old Conventional

Fig. 1. Correlation between cooling demand and cooling degree-days

3. Cooling mitigation strategies

As already introduced, the study also analyses the effects of some basic passive cooling strategies, in
order to understand their effectiveness in combination with the different envelope solutions. First the
effects of the two main basic passive cooling methods are considered [15]. Although a lot of devices are
currently available to optimize these strategies in order to obtain the maximum possible energy savings, in
this work they have been modeled according to the likely application by the users, following a
conservative approach. Secondly an alternative indoor temperature management based on the adaptive
approach to thermal comfort [7], which is less rigid and more climate-connected, is taken into account.

3.1. Shading

The considered shading devices are light colored external venetian blinds, with a shading factor of 0.3
[16], which are applied to the windows on every considered exposure except for the Northern one. The
1104 Simone Ferrari and Valentina Zanotto / Energy Procedia 30 (2012) 1099 – 1109

shading is assumed to be manually activated, and therefore it has been modeled in case of the direct solar
radiation on the glazed surface exceeding 100 W/m2 [17].

Cooling demand – Shading strategy

Shading - Southern exposure Shading - Eastern exposure
160 160

140 140
Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]

Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]

2

2
120 120

100 100

80 80

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Cooling Degree-Days Cooling Degree-Days

Shading - Western exposure

160

140
Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]
2

120

100

80

60

40
New Conventional New Glazed
20
60/80 Conventional 60/80 Glazed
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 Old Conventional
Cooling Degree-Days

Fig. 2. Correlation between cooling demand and cooling degree-days with shading devices

The cooling demand results in case of installation of external shading devices on the glazed surfaces
are reported in Fig. 2. Since they reduce the solar heat gains by preventing part of the incident solar
radiation to enter the building, one of their effects is to reduce the slope of the correlation equations. This
is particularly evident for the glazed buildings, which also reveal a significant decrease in the cooling
demand values that depend on the solar heat gains more in these cases than in the conventional ones. This
passive cooling strategy has the maximum effect on the 60/80 glazed building, bringing to savings that
range between 14% and 17% depending on location and exposure.

3.2. Night ventilation

Night ventilation consists in an increase of the air-change rate to 5 h-1, a level that is naturally
achievable through single side openings [18], during the night-hours (i.e. between 23:00 and 07:00, as
suggested by Refs. [4] and [5]) of the cooling period.
As can be seen in Fig. 3, the night ventilation strategy mainly affects the cooling need, significantly
decreasing the offsets between the correlation curves. This can be clearly seen in case of the new
conventional building, which reveals the highest savings and in this case behaves exactly as the other
conventional solutions, that remain the best performing ones. Through night ventilation, in fact, the heat
stored by the massive internal surfaces during the day, which is otherwise retained by the insulation layer,
can be lost by internal convection. Among the glazed solutions, which already present lower savings
 Simone Ferrari and Valentina Zanotto / Energy Procedia 30 (2012) 1099 – 1109 1105

percentages, this passive cooling strategy affects the new one more than the 60/80 one, due to the higher
overall heat capacity of its envelope.

Cooling demand – Night ventilation strategy

Night ventilation - Northern exposure Night ventilation - Southern exposure
160 160

140 140

Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]

Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]

2
2

120 120

100 100

80 80

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Cooling Degree-Days Cooling Degree-Days

Night ventilation - Eastern exposure Night ventilation - Western exposure

160 160

140 140
Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]

Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]

2

120 120

100 100

80 80

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Cooling Degree-Days Cooling Degree-Days

New Conventional New Glazed 60/80 Conventional 60/80 Glazed Old Conventional

Fig. 3. Correlation between cooling demand and cooling degree-days with night ventilation

3.3. Adaptive temperature set-point

The energy demand connected to building climatization aims at providing indoor environmental
conditions that are comfortable for the building occupants. These conditions are usually defined by
constant operative temperature levels [7,19,20] that are determined according to the heat balance comfort
theory [21] in order to minimize the heat exchanges between the occupants and the surrounding
environment at standard reference conditions (in terms of air humidity and velocity, and of metabolic rate
related to the building use). This theory is based on a very deterministic approach, which does not take
into account the psychological and cultural aspects of thermal comfort, and which has therefore been
questioned [22]: starting from the 1970s several field studies have been performed inside existing
buildings, analyzing the occupants’ actual thermal sensation and preference in real environments [23-25]).
From the statistical analysis of the results, an alternative approach to thermal comfort, called “adaptive”,
has been developed. This theory is based on a couple of fundamental assumptions. First of all human
beings actually tend to adapt themselves to the environmental conditions (through conscious or
unconscious changes in their metabolic rate and/or clothing level) and to interact with the enclosed space
(through the use of available environmental controls) in order to achieve environmental conditions that are
comfortable according to their dynamic and personal preferences. Secondly, the fact that the occupants’
expectations regarding the indoor conditions are deeply influenced by their thermal experience. Therefore
1106 Simone Ferrari and Valentina Zanotto / Energy Procedia 30 (2012) 1099 – 1109

the available adaptive indices, in their various formulations [26], propose acceptable indoor temperature
ranges that are variable according to the outdoor air temperature trend in the specific building location.
Since the adaptive indices have been developed according to the actual building users’ thermal sensations
and preferences, in this work the adaptive comfort temperature upper limit represents the climatization
system set-point as autonomously managed by the occupants.
Among all the available indices [26], the equations of the B category suggested by the Dutch ATG
standard [27] have been adopted to determine the internal operative temperature cooling set-point, in
particular to achieve the 80% acceptability which is recommended for common offices. Fig. 4 shows the
adaptive temperature set-point calculated according to this approach for the coldest and the warmest
locations (Milano and Palermo respectively), compared to the conventional cooling operative temperature
limit of 26°C.

Adaptive temperature set-point: Milano and Palermo

30
Milano
29
Palermo
Operative Temperature [°C]

28

27

26

25

24

23

22
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12
Months

Fig. 4. Comparison of the adaptive cooling set-point temperature calculated for the cities of Milano and Palermo, also with reference
to the conventional 26°C

The effects of the introduction of the adaptive temperature set-point are shown in Fig. 5, and the main
one is the decrease of the correlation equations slope.
This is easy to understand, since the adaptive equations determine the set-point temperature according
to the external climate (i.e. outdoor temperature), whose correlation to the cooling demand decreases
accordingly. This phenomenon is however less evident in the 60/80 glazed building (about 20% slope
decrease) than in the other ones (about 30%).
The capacity of the different envelope solutions to take advantage of a dynamic building management
can be quantified in terms of savings in the cooling need due to the adoption of the variable adaptive set-
point. The highest percentage reductions regard the 60/80 and old conventional buildings that are already
the best performing ones, with values about 30%-40%. At the same time the worse performing glazed
buildings also seem to be the ones that can less precisely follow a variable set-point, with savings about
10%-20%.
 Simone Ferrari and Valentina Zanotto / Energy Procedia 30 (2012) 1099 – 1109 1107

Cooling demand – Adaptive strategy

Adaptive set-point - Northern exposure Adaptive set-point - Southern exposure
160 160

140 140

Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]

Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]

2
2

120 120

100 100

80 80

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Cooling Degree-Days Cooling Degree-Days

Adaptive set-point - Eastern exposure Adaptive set-point - Western exposure

160 160

140 140
Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]

Cooling Demand [kWh/m ]

2

2
120 120

100 100

80 80

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Cooling Degree-Days Cooling Degree-Days

New Conventional New Glazed 60/80 Conventional 60/80 Glazed Old Conventional

Fig. 5. Correlation between cooling demand and cooling degree-days with adaptive temperature set-point

4. Conclusions

The analyses presented in this paper evaluates the cooling performances of various typical office
building envelopes in the Italian context. Among the considered solutions the glazed ones are
characterized by cooling demands that are always much higher than the conventional solutions ones.
Among these last buildings, in particular, the older ones (60/80 and old) have the best performances. The
advantages of the conventional buildings on the glazed ones are even enhanced when the considered
cooling mitigation strategies are adopted, in particular concerning night ventilation and the adaptive
management of the cooling system.
In the last years, severe insulation requirements for the envelope elements have been introduced in
order to reduce the building heating need. This study showed that the insulation of the envelope decreases
the building cooling performances, unless an alternative strategy is adopted to loose the heat stored by the
massive internal structure (e.g. night ventilation), and the solar gains through the large-glazed façades are
critical, even if the glass panes comply with the new requirements.
Since the energy consumption for cooling is becoming increasingly relevant also in temperate climate,
it should become a fundamental issue when planning both new realizations and renovations. In this
picture, the results of the present work not only discourage the realization of new glazed buildings, but
suggest also, in case of renovation of conventional buildings to comply with the insulation requirements,
to adopt a strategy to compensate the foreseen lack of transmission losses through the envelope.
1108 Simone Ferrari and Valentina Zanotto / Energy Procedia 30 (2012) 1099 – 1109

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