Piemonte, Italy

Increasing thermal efficiency in urban dwellings

The low energy and ecological residential building project in the Piemonte Region in northern Italy aims to establish a standard, "prototype", for future building practices based on energy saving and environmental criteria. The buildings are to function as a demonstration project that provides valuable information on cost-effective integration of combined innovative and conventional building materials and efficient energy technologies in new buildings.

This new design has been developed for an Olympic village for the Torino Winter Olympics 2006. The building site is in Vinovo – a small town near Torino.

The prototype building consists of a minor complex with 5 staircases and 2 heated floors with a total of 20 apartments. A similar complex has been build based on conventional building practices in order to compare energy efficiency. Each building will have two heated floors with car parking and cellars in the basement and a total heated surface of approx. 1,427 m² and a total heated volume about 4,300 m³. The dwellings vary in sizes from 40 m² to 70 m² and use the same heating system with low temperature small district heating.

The "prototype" building will make use of a wide range of innovative technologies such as:

• Centralised low temperature heating system with condensing boiler and radiant panels.
• Solar assisted heat recovery mechanical ventilation system for the apartments by means of a passive solar system.
• Water solar collectors for domestic hot water production.
• PV system for electricity production.
• Energy meter system connected to an EMS.
• Ecological building material guaranteed by certification.
• Low energy lighting system.
• Extra insulation of the building envelope.
• Water saving (recovery system for rain water and grey domestic water).

Heating is provided mainly by a highly efficient central heating plant, a condensing gas boiler, in each building and with radiators and thermostatic valves in each apartment. Moreover heat meters are installed as part of an Energy Management System (EMS) for heating control. Thermal insulation of walls and floors is realised by installing highly insulating ecological materials, wood fibre panels, as well as low energy windows with double layer glazing. Due to the extensive insulation and lessened heat demand, the heating system can provide lower temperatures, approx. 50° C, in the distribution grid. The system is carefully designed to cope with the real demand, which means the entire system has reduced heat loss from the boiler and from distribution.

A PV system and a water saving solution (recovery system for rainwater and grey domestic water) are foreseen for the “prototype” building, although these solutions were not included in the original project.

A solar heating system for domestic hot water supplements the central heating. For each building a total surface of water solar collectors of about 70 m² is installed with a 40° inclination facing south, which should cover 80% of the hot water demand during summer and 50% during winter season.

A mechanical ventilation system guarantees optimal air exchange and high indoor comfort in each apartment. Furthermore heat in the exhaust air is recovered and transmitted to the incoming fresh air in an integrated heat recover, which can utilise up to as much as 94% of the energy, and lastly passive solar design enables preheating of the external air in south faced conservatories.

Monitoring Scheme:

Building period:	Work started: June 2003
	Work finised: October 2005
Monitoring period:

Further information:

Contractor and builder	ATC TORINO Corso Dante, 14 I-10134 Torino Italy Phone: +39-011 31301 Fax. +39-011 3130425 e-mail: l.carere@atc.torino.it www.atc.torino.it
Technical responsible	Metec&Saggese Engineering Srl. Corso Re Umberto, 37 I-10128 Torino Italy Phone: +39-011538617 Fax: +39-011542481
Contact person:	Salvatore Calì Quaglia e-mail: lavori@metecsaggese.com www.metecsaggese.com