Innovative Energy-Efficient Prefabricated Movable Buildings for Smart/Co-Working: Performance Assessment upon Varying Building Configurations

Abstract

Worldwide, smart/co-working spaces are growing significantly, and prefabricated movable buildings for such an application could (i) save energy, CO2 emissions, and costs; (ii) enhance the worker’s perceived sense of surroundings; and (iii) support the rebirth of small villages with high regenerative potential. Innovative prefabricated movable building configurations to be used as an office for smart/co-working by a maximum of 6 persons have been designed and analyzed based on simulation data. In particular, 10 case studies corresponding to building configurations differing in terms of innovative energy-efficient measures related to the building envelope (smart windows operated under various control logics) and the energy systems serving the building (photovoltaic panels, small wind turbines, and electric storages) have been modeled and simulated by applying detailed dynamic simulation models via the simulation software TRNSYS. The performance of the 10 case studies has been compared from energy, environmental, and economic points of view with respect to a baseline system characterized by conventional building envelope and energy systems, with the aim of assessing the proposed measures and identifying the most efficient configuration. The simulation results highlighted that: (i) all the proposed alternative configurations allow to save primary energy (from 10.3% up to 100%), equivalent CO2 emissions(from 10.3% up to 100%), and operating costs (from 8.5% up to 100%) with respect to the baseline building; (ii) the building configurations including the smart windows only are not economically feasible in terms of simple pay-back (SPB) period, while the building configurations equipped with photovoltaic panels and/or electric storages and/or wind turbine represent a suitable investment thanks to an SPB lower than 15.2 years; (iii) a stand-alone building configuration for smart/co-working with energy demands totally covered by means of renewable sources can be obtained by combining smart windows, photovoltaic panels, electric storages and wind turbine.