Data analysis and modelling on a monitoring activity of social housing in the North-East of Italy

Council houses are buildings owned by local administrations and provided to low-income tenants. In 2022, thirty electrically-driven public housing apartments were completed in the North-East of Italy, each one equipped with heat pump. A monitoring activity was carried out in twelve units, eight naturally ventilated and four with mechanical system. Thermal comfort, indoor air quality and building energy consumptions are continuously recorded. In this paper, the monitored data are analysed, and considerations about ventilation systems are reported. Based on the adaptive model, the designed natural ventilation solutions seem unable to maintain adequate thermal comfort conditions in summer, but it is not clear if tenants were instructed on the system’s use. Subsequently, a dynamic building energy model of a monitored apartment is built coupling TRNSYS and CONTAM. The simulated indoor air temperature is in good agreement with real data, with a RMSE equal to 0.7°C. A certain temporal correspondence in the HP operation is also obtained. The discrepancies are mainly related to unavailable information on how occupants manage the heating and ventilation system and on weather conditions in the precise location.