Energy life cycle approach in two Mediterranean buildings: operation and embodied energy assessment

In the proposed work two case-studies were selected: the first one is a multifamily, high energy performance nearly Net ZEB located in central Italy; the second one is an existing standard Mediterranean single-family house in Sicily. The embodied energy and the operation energy were assessed for the case-studies, following a life-cycle approach, in compliance with ISO 14040 standards. In detail, when shifting from the standard building towards the high energy performance one, the relative share of operation energy decreases, while the embodied energy one increases. Therefore, the lower the operating energy, the more important it is to adopt a life cycle approach. The introduction of the life-cycle analysis introduces a further deficit in the energy balance from the neutral condition for the nearly Net ZEB case study. However, it emphasizes the embodied energy of the building as a key issues not to be neglected in the exhaustive evaluation of the energy demand of low energy buildings.