A Decision Support Tool to Assess the Energy Renovation Performance Through a Timber-Based Solution for Concrete-Framed Buildings

The present paper describes a novel and user-friendly Decision Support System (e-DSS) designed to assist technicians in the preliminary design stage of a building renovation process based on the solutions developed in the innovation project e-SAFE, funded by the EU under the H2020 program. The e-DSS is engineered to rapidly assess key performance indicators, including energy performance before and after renovation, reduction in CO2 emission for space heating, space cooling, and DHW preparation, seismic upgrade feasibility, expected costs, and payback time. To demonstrate its capabilities, the e-DSS was applied to an existing public housing building in Catania, southern Italy. The predicted thermal energy needs for space heating and cooling were compared to the results from detailed simulations using a professional-grade software tool, for both as-built condition and a proposed renovation generated by the e-DSS itself. The discrepancies identified through this comparison will inform the refinement of the e-DSS algorithms to increase their accuracy and reliability. More generally, this paper recommends suitable algorithms that can be effectively employed in the development of simplified decision-making tools specifically tailored for building professionals operating in the early phase of building renovation projects.