Lean Screening for Greener Energy Consumption in Retrofitting a Residential Apartment Unit

• Published in: Applied Sciences
• Main Authors: Christina Rousali, George Besseris
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2022-06-01
• Subjects: energy consumption; intervention costs; retrofitting; residential apartment unit; lean-and-green screening; supersaturated designs
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/13/6631

Buildings consume a large portion of the global primary energy. They are also key contributors to CO₂ emissions. Greener residential buildings are part of the ‘Renovation Wave’ in the European Green Deal. The purpose of this study was to explore the usefulness of energy consumption screening as a part of seeking retrofitting opportunities in the older residential building stock. The objective was to manage the screening of the electromechanical energy systems for an existing apartment unit. The parametrization was drawn upon inspection items in a comprehensive electronic checklist—part of an official software—in order to incur the energy certification status of a residential building. The extensive empirical parametrization intends to discover retrofitting options while offering a glimpse of the influence of the intervention costs on the final screening outcome. A supersaturated trial planner was implemented to drastically reduce the time and volume of the experiments. Matrix data analysis chart-based sectioning and general linear model regression seamlessly integrate into a simple lean-and-agile solver engine that coordinates the polyfactorial profiling of the joint multiple characteristics. The showcased study employed a 14-run 24-factor supersaturated scheme to organize the data collection of the performance of the energy consumption along with the intervention costs. It was found that the effects that influence the energy consumption may be slightly differentiated if intervention costs are also simultaneously considered. The four strong factors that influenced the energy consumption were the automation type for hot water, the types of heating and cooling systems, and the power of the cooling systems. An energy certification category rating of ‘B’ was achieved; thus, the original status (‘C’) was upgraded. The renovation profiling practically reduced the energy consumption by 47%. The concurrent screening of energy consumption and intervention costs detected five influential effects—the automation type for water heating, the automation control category, the heating systems type, the location of the heating system distribution network, and the efficiency of the water heating distribution network. The overall approach was shown to be simpler and even more accurate than other potentially competitive methods. The originality of this work lies in its rareness, worldwide criticality, and impact since it directly deals with the energy modernization of older residential units while promoting greener energy performance.