Improving the Efficiency of Maritime Infrastructures through a BIM-Based Building Energy Modelling Approach: A Case Study in Naples, Italy

Worldwide, the design, renovation, and sustainable management of port buildings play a crucial role for sustainability. In this framework, a computer simulation of a building’s thermal behaviour is an almost mandatory tool for making informed decisions. However, the development of a building energy model is a challenging task that could discourage its adoption. A possible solution would be to exploit an existing Building Information Modeling (BIM) model to automatically generate an accurate and flexible Building Energy Modeling (BEM) one. Such a method, which can substantially improve decision-making processes, still presents some issues and needs to be further investigated, as also detectable from the literature on the topic. In this framework, a novel workflow to extrapolate BIM data for energy simulation is proposed and analysed in this paper. Here, the BIM to BEM approach was tested as a useful tool for the maritime industry to improve the implementation of effective energy-saving measures. Specifically, in order to prove the capabilities of the proposed method, a maritime passenger station in Naples was chosen as case study and investigated by comparing different strategies to reduce the annual primary energy consumption. The optimal level of modelling detail required by a trustable building energy assessment was also investigated. By the proposed method, interesting primary energy savings (ranging from 24 to 41%) are achieved and CO 2 emissions avoided (ranging from 16 to 34 tons CO 2 /year) for the investigated building, proving the potential of this approach. Definitely, this paper proves the validity of the proposed methodology and emphasizes its numerous benefits towards the achievements of the most modern sustainability standards.