The impact of stakeholder preferences in multicriteria evaluation for the retrofitting of office buildings in Italy

Buildings are responsible for about 26% of the total final energy consumption in Italy. Therefore, building retrofitting represents an opportunity to achieve economic and environmental benefits. However, a challenging task is the application of robust methodologies for evaluating cost-optimal retrofit measures. The paper evaluates, in terms of multiple criteria-based approach, several retrofitting alternatives selected for a typical office building in Italy. The alternatives are evaluated considering economic, environmental, and technical requirements and are compared by means of a Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA) method, able to consider uncertainties in the criteria evaluation. Three different stakeholder preferences are analyzed and compared with the aim to point out the importance of preference information in multicriteria analysis. The results highlight that, when the preference is the investment cost, for the case study analyzed the most suitable solution is represented by a gas boiler and electricity withdrawn from the market. On the other hand, when the operational cost has the same or more importance than the investment cost, the best solution is represented by a micro-CHP coupled with PV plant. Lastly, the analysis highlights that the main driver of a building retrofit is of economic nature and that, depending on the actors involved, a precise study of preference information could influence the outcome of the analysis