Retrofitting of the HVAC plant of an elderly people residential care home

Among the public (but not only) buildings, residential care homes for elderly people are ones of the potentially most important because of the increasing European population aging. Nowadays about 14 % of European population is over 65 years of age, and it is expected that this number will double by 2050 [1]. These figures in Italy assume dramatic values, as actually we have 21.4 % of population over 65 (13 million) and we will have 33.6 % (18.7 million) by 2050 [2] [3]. Nowadays about 1.5 million elderly live in more than 24000 care homes in Europe (300000 elderly live in just less than 6000 in Italy). These buildings operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with full occupancy. For these reasons reducing energy consumption in residential care homes is important. In this context, this paper focuses on the study of the energy performance of a quite new residential care home for elderly people in Vicenza (North East of Italy). A preliminary energy audit was carried out in order to obtain appropriate information about energy consumption of the building. Moving from the request of the managers responsible for running the care home, a Trnsys simulation model of the building and heating/cooling plant system was developed aiming at testing different solutions to retrofit the heating/cooling plant.