Towards Nearly Zero Energy Buıldıng: Challenge Of Mediterranean Region

The challenge of planning and building high performing buildings, towards nearly zero-energy buildings, is of increasing interest in South Europe and in Mediterranean countries. This challenge was taken up and carried forward by North Europe and Scaninavian countries, who developed specific design methodologies and approaches referred to cold climates. These experiences are surely interesting and should be critically analyzed; however, the specifics of Mediterranean climates require a detailed revisitation of the approaches aimed at reducing energy consumptions of buildings in which winter heating loads and summer cooling loads have to be balanced. In this paper a general introduction about the complexity of building design in Mediterranean climates is proposed and an example of a real nZEB in Italy is presented.