Supporting the EU mission “100-climate neutral cities”: using urban building energy modeling for zero-emission building retrofit scenarios at district scale

Abstract

As a participant in the EU mission “100 climate-neutral cities by 2030”, Turin, Italy, must decarbonize by end of decade. This work supports transforming the building sector, quantifying savings from retrofits for 1,761 residential buildings in Turin using urban building energy modeling (UBEM). Past UBEM studies demonstrated retrofits reducing over 60% of energy use, with reductions of over 80% in net energy or carbon emissions when adding renewable energy in a few examples. The novelty of this study is to target retrofits using the zero-emissions building approach while emphasizing decision-making toward efficiency and constructability of retrofits. The results show a reduction of overall primary energy use of 56% to 71% in retrofit scenarios including envelope and mechanical system measures, and adding onsite PV energy generation reduces carbon emissions by 90% compared to baseline. The value of the study is to support Turin as one of the 100 climate-neutral cities, and offer lessons learned to other cities in the EU mission.