Energy efficiency improvement of public building from the sixteenth century
Calitri Municipal Building
Calitri is an Italian town of 4,500 inhabitants located in Campania, in the province of Avellino, along the banks of the Ofanto river . In April 2019, the city received the recognition of " City of ancient and established ceramic tradition ", allowing Calitri to become one of the 46 City of Ceramics on the national territory.
It was in 1999 that the Italian Association of Ceramics City ( AiCC ) was established, a register that certifies the Italian ceramist tradition of value and quality, giving artisans a recognition that can be spent on international markets, placing Calitri in a wide-ranging cultural context that opens up new scenarios at regional and national level.
The Municipal Building of Calitri is located in a building from 1550, in the Benedictine nuns of clausur convent. The administration was able to aspire to an energy efficiency of the property thanks to European Community incentives.
To meet the need for thermal energy, it was decided to use Robur machines , installing 2 GAHP-GS Condensing Absorption Heat Pump Powered by Natural Gas and Ground Source Renewable Energy, which allow for heat and produce hot water with high efficiency in heating systems, involving the use of renewable geothermal energy.
The use of this Robur unit allows to decrease the length of the probes and therefore the costs: the project ( with electric geothermal heat pumps ) included 12 probes, with Robur we managed to use 6 U type probes of 100 meters in length.
Architect Eleonora Iannuzzi
The Robur GAHP-GS allows a reduction of investment costs for geothermal probes even higher than 50% compared to electric heat pumps and using geothermal renewable energy, are able to exceed a thermal efficiency of 165% (GUE - Gas Utilization Efficiency - equivalent to COP 4.13 calculated with an energy conversion factor of 2.5.).
Also competitive in terms of initial cost compared to alternative technologies, makes also savings on heating costs compared to the best condensing boilers , increase value of property while increasing the energy efficiency class and reducing to the minimum electricity requirements compared to solutions with electric heat pumps. Another aspect that made us prefer this type of machine is the use of natural gas because gas certainly costs less than electricity: we know that the more electricity is consumed, the more it costs as opposed to natural gas where more if it is consumed , the unit cost decreases.
Architect Eleonora Iannuzzi
The ROBUR heat pump system came on stream in 2016, replacing a basement oil-fired boiler. This made it possible to bring the building of the House of the Municipality of Calitri from class F to class A + , allowing final savings on heating consumption of between 60/70%. Based on the calculations we made a projection of a final saving on consumption of around 60/70%. At final, with bills at hand, it has been found effective compliance of the savings to what we had budgeted.
Architect Eleonora Iannuzzi
The construction of the geothermal system with the Robur GAHP-GS natural gas absorption heat pumps was commissioned by the contractor to renovate the Municipal House of Calitri in the province of Avellino. Although our company has been operating at a regional and national level for over 30 years in the thermo-hydraulic system sector, for us it was the first construction of a geothermal system. From the beginning our work team was clear that it would create an innovative system compared to traditional ones. With great enthusiasm we have completed the construction of the geothermal system with ROBUR heat pumps, an experience that is extremely positive for us and of great professional satisfaction since, albeit with a considerable workload, it was completed in a short time and without problems of any kind.
Gaetano Angelo Marzullo - G.M.T. Service Srl - Contrada Nevara, Aquilonia (AV)
