Development of a mixed-use urban district: feasibility study of a hydronic loop system to cover the masterplan heating and cooling demand

Over the years, the building envelope and how it is characterized has acquired a vital importance on how to decrease the overall energy consumption. A sustainable design starts from a good characterization of the envelope of the building in terms of form factor, stratigraphy (U-value of the opaque surfaces and the U-value of the glazed components) and the percentage of window to wall ratio (WWR). This information is applied into the dynamic simulation of a new Mixed-use urban district with different intended use (school, residential, hospital, offices and commercial) located in Bergamo, Italy. This a good example of continuous growth of the urban areas and show how important is to have a good master plan to foresee the increase of the people density and development of the city throughout the years. Consequently, the heating and cooling demand varies, and the correct selection of a system to fulfill these requirements becomes important. Because of this, the system chosen is a hydronic loop to cover the heating and cooling demand obtained from the dynamic simulation without having the thermal comfort of the people occupying the buildings being affected. This work goes further on studying the feasibility of having this hydronic loop be able to not only satisfy the present heating and cooling demand but also to size it to also cover the increasing demand in the future years.