University buildings, as well as most public buildings can be identified as ‘no-owner’ or orphan buildings. In a significant number of cases, energy management in Mediterranean universities does not involve dedicated staff, and any improvement in Energy Efficiency is achieved through routine maintenance and refurbishment.
Among the actions proposed within Med-EcoSure to face these challenges, is the development of a decision aid tool to support the energy management staff, as a first target group, in identifying and implementing the best options for building refurbishing and improving operation control for achieving significant energy savings, while maintaining the occupant's comfort.
The interactive tool was designed and developed by University of Seville, partner of Med-EcoSuRe and serves as a multi-objective decision model for the optimal ranking/trade-offs analysis between retrofit options, based on relevant decision criteria. The onlie tool allows to:
1. Evaluate the performance of the building at its initial state (Baseline assessment) by calculating its energy consumption and reviewing all the results obtained;
2. Select a set of energy conservation measures provided through a catalogue including conventional and innovative technologies and solutions that can be evaluated.
3. Carry out a technico-economic optimization in order to obtain the most suitable combinations of renovations, for the building selected, and print a report which includes the initial situation and the savings obtained with every one of the conservation measures combinations selected.
Thanks to the decision aid tool developed, the most suitable and cost-effective renovation measures will be identified for the pilot buildings of Med-EcoSuRe project, among others.
In order to make the best use of the tool, a training programme has been launched which targets the project partners, as future trainers, and the energy managers mainly within universities.
The Lebanese Center for Energy Conservation (LCEC), partner of ESMES will benefit also from the training in order to evaluate the performance of their pilot buildings and optimize their operation while using the decision aid tool proposed.