Experimental and numerical assessment for HVAC management in an industrial building: A preliminary optimization

COVID-19 em ergency has ca used major changes in everyday life in the la st m onths, a nd it a lso affected the management of buildings. In particular, indoor a ir quality and ventilation ha ve been considered to play a key role in the spreading of the infection, causing national and interna tional subjects to draw up specific guidelines on ventilation and air recirculation rate in AHUs. The pa per deals with the “Loccioni Leaf Lab”, a n industria l building that hosts offices a nd workers operating on test benches. The building features high performance envelope, solar photovoltaic systems, groundwater heat pumps a nd a high -technology control a nd monitoring system and it is connected to a thermal and electric smart grid. A va lidated m odel of the building, im plem ented with the software DesignBuilder a nd EnergyPlus, wa s used to carry out numerical sim ula tions to optimize the m anagement of the HVAC through the Building Management System. Different working conditions have been sim ulated, a nd the numerical output has been used together with experimental data collected from the Company monitoring system. Ithas been possible to investigate how the extra ventilation required by the new guidelines would affect the tota l energy consumption a nd to compare, in term s of energy efficiency, the different HVAC m a nagement stra tegies tha t could be used to ensure occupants hea lth safety and indoor air qua lity.