Energy Community, decarbonising the built environment: Integrated analysis and interoperative modeling of Life Cycle

Increasing buildings’ autonomy, sustainability and efficiency with respect to energy needs is a strategic goal now consolidated. A strategic tool (spread internationally, and recently also in Italy through experimental applications) is represented by the Energy Communities, intended as a community in which users actively cooperate for the use of renewable sources and technological innovation in order to purchase benefits in terms of sustainability and energy efficiency. But attention to these issues and the technical regulations on new constructions lead to design buildings with more performing envelopes and energy systems, limiting (and updating to zero) consumption and impacts during the use stage, with the risk of moving the problem the towards other life cycle phases of the unit. It is therefore essential to assist through an integrated process that sees on the one hand the need to develop forecast models adapted to users (and that provides subsequent results as much as possible to real behavior) and in parallel extending the analysis to the other phases with particular attention to the energy incorporated in building materials and carbon footprint related to all processes involved in the life cycle. Working through simulation models installed on hourly data and real usage profiles results more reliable in terms of energy balance and integrating them with a specific LCA analysis for buildings provide to get complete assessment of the environmental profile. The purpose of this work is to offer (and apply through a real case study) a methodology that defines an interoperative process between preventive consumption insurance and environmental impacts during use stage, updating the life cycle assessment through a LCA specific for buildings and coordinating the workflow in BIM environment for modeling and managing project data.