A smart approach to analyze at urban level buildings energy demand, to support energy saving policies. An Italian case study

Reducing cities energy consumption is a main target of the 20-20-20 communitarian policies, but effective strategies to promote existing buildings stock retrofitting need to be fostered and, on the same time, based on the specificity of the urban context. The paper shows the preliminary results of an experimentation carried out on an Italian pilot case that has the purpose to define and test combined methodologies for the study, at urban scale, of the energy demand of buildings. The methodology is set on the Italian regulations [1] but can be easily adapted and replicated in any other geographic location. The paper will describe two different methodologies: the “Energy Web Feltre” best practice, a project carried out in the pilot city of Feltre (Belluno, IT) that tested the use of survey data to analyse urban energy demand, and the "Urban EPC" experimentation that estimates the city energy demand using a bottom-up engineering model, developed on a GIS platform and based on the Italian standards for calculating the energy efficiency of buildings. [2] In the end the results and the limits of the proposed study will be discussed by a comparison of the two different approaches. The paper ends with a preliminary hypothesis to solve some of the problems emerged during the experimentation using a social tool based on a web interface with the goal of using the knowledge of end users (eco-feedback) to improve the quality and quantity of data in order to improve calculation of buildings energy demand at urban level and to have a continuous update of information related to end-use energy consumption