PEOPLEFrancesco Turrin

de en it

Francesco Turrin

Researcher
Institute for Renewable Energy

T +39 0471 055 648

francesco.turrin@eurac.edu

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8061-8916

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About

I am an Energy Engineer working on design and control of heating and cooling systems that make use of heat pumps. I am a member of the research group working on Sustainable Heating and Cooling Systems at the Institute for Renewable Energy.

My work is focused on development and utilization of simulation tools for heating and cooling systems, mainly applied to single buildings. Part of my work is related to the implementation and improvement of control logics for HVAC systems. I am involved in different European projects and in industry commissioned projects.

Main research fields:

design and simulation of heating and cooling systems
development of optimized control logics for heating and cooling systems

Scientific Publications

Journal article2026

A simulation-based framework for parametric energy renovation strategies in European buildings

Fakhari M, Filippi Oberegger U, Turrin F, Lollini R

Ulrich Filippi Oberegger, Roberto Lollini, Francesco Turrin

This study presents a simulation-based framework for evaluating energy renovation strategies across European building typologies and climate zones. A factorial parametric approach was used to simulate over 800,000 combinations of envelope assemblies, HVAC systems, and shading controls for three archetypes (single-family, multi-family, office) across five European climate zones under both current and projected (2050, RCP 8.5) weather conditions. A Rhinoceros/Grasshopper workflow generated an extensive, public simulation results framework, enabling evidence-driven renovation scenario exploration. The framework enables detailed assessment of both staged and deep renovation pathways by simulating envelopes and system upgrades in both isolated and combined configurations. Baseline models were calibrated using European building stock datasets, ensuring realistic energy performance with deviations within ± 10 % for residential cases. Results showed that retrofit solutions reduce space-heating demand higher than cooling demand. All outputs are compiled in an open-access platform that allows users to filter scenarios by building characteristics or performance targets. By integrating large-scale parametric simulation, empirical calibration, and climate change projections, this study offers a screening-level evidence base for comparing retrofit strategies across climates and building typologies. The framework provides a reproducible basis for prioritizing such strategies to support early-stage decision process through a performance-based transparent comparison among technology choices.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2026.116976

Journal article2026

An advanced predictive battery control strategy for plus energy building flexibility: Simulation-based assessment and laboratory experimental setup

Dalla Maria E, Turrin F, Belleri A, Barchi G

Grazia Barchi, Annamaria Belleri, Francesco Turrin, Enrico Dalla Maria

Project: EU H2020 CULTURAL-E: Climate and cultural based design and market valuable technology solutions for Plus Energy Houses

Buildings account for 40% of energy use making them central to achieving climate neutrality goals. In this context, energy building flexibility emerges as a key enabler, particularly when combined with the Plus Energy Building (PEB) concept, where buildings generate more renewable energy than they consume annually to achieve climate-neutrality goals. As an energy system, the building can offer demand-side flexibility by responding to external penalty signals such as price, CO₂ emissions or grid congestion, thus enabling system operators to dynamically influence consumption patterns. In this work, we present a predictive advanced PV-battery management strategy in year-long simulations across different scenarios, obtained by combining a reference building archetype, various representative European geo-clusters, and electrical consumption resulting from tailored controls of the thermal assets. The heterogeneous results across geo-clusters underscore the influence of climate, culture, and system sizing on predictive control performance, with findings from the Mediterranean cluster (with expected best case flexibility improvement in the range of 14%). These outcomes motivate the implementation of a laboratory-scale setup to port the proposed control strategies to commercially available devices under real working conditions. We report observations of a year-long monitoring of such a laboratory setup, recording the ability to shift battery stored energy toward high-priced periods, with non-standard induced inverter operations observed 10% of the time, highlighting the system’s responsiveness under real-world conditions.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.1016/j.segan.2026.102127

Journal article2026

Modelling thermocline dynamics in thermal energy storages: A computationally efficient reduced-order model approach

Fouladfar MH, Diller T, Turrin F, Fedrizzi R

Tim Christoph Diller, Francesco Turrin

Project: EU H2020 REWARDHeat - Renewable and Waste Heat Recovery for Competitive District Heating and Cooling Networks

The effectiveness of model predictive control in residential buildings depends on computationally efficient and accurate component models, such as thermal energy storage, to optimize heating and cooling systems. Existing high-fidelity models, using computational fluid dynamics and multi-nodal approaches, are often too computationally intensive for real-time model predictive control applications, while simpler lumped models fail to accurately capture thermal stratification and its impact on the heating system performance. To address these limitations, an innovative reduced-order model is introduced. It simulates thermocline dynamics like formation and movement while only employing two thermal nodes. The model was validated experimentally across diverse operational scenarios, including charging, discharging, and sequential cycles. It was found to be two orders of magnitude faster for the specified simulation timestep and boundary conditions, while consistently achieving superior accuracy compared to finite difference white box models, reducing RMSE and MAE by up to 46% and 44% respectively. As such, the model is a highly effective tool for real-time model-based control applications, enabling improved energy management and energy efficiency in buildings.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2025.129287

Journal article2025

Prosumers and district heating: Experimental validation of strategies to improve thermal energy production and consumption

Sdringola P, Pipiciello M, Ricci E, Gianaroli F, Menegon D, Trentin F, Turrin F, Di Pietra B

Diego Menegon, Mauro Pipiciello, Federico Trentin, Francesco Turrin

The European Union targets a 55 % reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and climate neutrality by 2050, emphasizing decarbonisation in energy sectors. District Heating Networks with thermal prosumers and bidirectional substations are critical to decarbonize the heating sector by integrating renewable energy sources. The paper analyses how to enhance the share of renewable energy sources used by a thermal prosumer. Various strategies, including heat pump integration, are experimentally studied to improve the prosumer’s energy self-consumption in a district heating network operating at two temperature levels (80/50 °C and 60/30 °C for supply and return), utilizing the hardware-in-the-loop technique to couple the substation in real-time with data-driven profiles for thermal loads (multi-family residential buildings) and production (solar panels). Energy flows are analysed for representative days and then extrapolated to calculate yearly results. The implemented strategies were found to be effective in terms of user’s self-sufficiency: the energy produced by solar panels and used to cover the thermal demand increased across all case studies i.e., from 8 % to 27 % for non-renovated buildings operating with high-temperature network, from 14 % to 26 % for renovated buildings with low-temperature network. The share of self-consumption increased from 13 % to 30 %, and from 10 % to 15 % respectively, and the production from renewable sources was enhanced (up to 39 %). With net metering, local energy surplus can be utilized beyond production periods, achieving 58 % self-consumption when integrating a heat pump. The results can support stakeholders in developing efficient district heating systems, particularly in the context of potential thermal energy communities

DOI Source

DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2025.115713

Journal article2024

Effectiveness and sustainability of solutions sets aimed at plus energy buildings: A multi-case and multi-domain investigation

Di Bari R, Turrin F, Leis H, Isaia F, Belleri A

Annamaria Belleri, Francesco Turrin, Francesco Isaia

Plus Energy Buildings (PEBs) are gaining attention in construction for providing advantages not only on the singular building but also on higher levels, namely neighbourhoods and national grids. Different from the current standard of net zero energy buildings, PEBs lack broader and holistic investigations that consider energy, environmental, and economic performance indicators. These are needed to evaluate their often-debated effectiveness and environmental sustainability. To this purpose, this work assesses technical equipment functional systems aimed at PEBs by considering energy, environmental and cost performance indicators and by carrying out a multi-case and multi-domain investigation.

A parametric modelling is carried out based on building energy simulations and user energy profile modelling in 16 case studies. Relevant Key Performance Indicators are derived and followed to attempt result clustering and to derive general considerations for the designed solution.

The study showed that the effectiveness of such systems is limited if PV modules are located on the roof exclusively. Moreover, heat pumps and PV technologies need to be better coupled and harmonised in subarctic regions. Overall, centralised systems perform better, and environmental and economic advantages depend on the national energy and economic context. Such results can be considered valid under the same conditions and circumstances; therefore, an extension of case studies is needed.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.1016/j.jobe.2024.109914

Journal article2024

Numerical and experimental investigation of stratified water storage tanks: An enhanced adaptive-grid model

Jodeiri AM, Soppelsa A, Turrin F, Pipiciello M, Cozzini M, Fedrizzi R

Anton Soppelsa, Mauro Pipiciello, Francesco Turrin, Marco Cozzini

Project: EU H2020 REWARDHeat - Renewable and Waste Heat Recovery for Competitive District Heating and Cooling Networks

Stratified water storage tanks are key in thermal energy systems, effectively balancing energy supply with heat demand, thus facilitating operational flexibility. Accurately modeling both energy balance and thermocline evolution with minimal computational effort is essential for models implementation in real-time control applications. One-dimensional, static-grid models are favored for their easy implementation; however, they require dense grids in order to minimize numerical diffusion and to represent mixing effect correctly, resulting in rather expensive computational effort. This study introduces an adaptive-grid model that comprehensively represents the water storage tank’s geometrical features, including inlet and outlet duct heights and dead volume sizes. It also details the spatially discretized heat diffusion and characterizes the inflow region’s mixing using an empirical equation. Implemented in both TRaNsient SYstem Simulation (TRNSYS) and Modelica environments, the model is validated through laboratory experiments with a hot water storage tank operating under various mass flow and temperature conditions, representative of heat pump-driven heating systems. The results indicate improvements in computational efficiency compared to static-grid models, specifically a 55% reduction in simulation duration with the same level of uncertainty.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2024.123113

Journal article2023

A New Type in TRNSYS 18 for Simulation of Borehole Heat Exchangers Affected by Different Groundwater Flow Velocities

Antelmi M, Turrin F, Zille A, Fedrizzi R

Francesco Turrin

Heating ventilating air-conditioning (HVAC) systems have been increasingly widespread in Italy: they can exploit renewable energies, are energy efficient systems, do not directly consume fossil fuels, and in the post-pandemic era, have also been subject to incentive processes by the Italian government. In South Tyrol, subject to harsh climates in both the winter and summer seasons, ground-source heat pump (GSHP) systems can be an excellent solution for the air conditioning of buildings. Unfortunately, too often, the design of HVAC systems with borehole heat exchangers (BHEs) is not adequate, and therefore, an innovative and expeditious numerical solution is proposed. A new numerical element (named Type285), written in Fortran code, was developed for TRNSYS 18 and able to implement the main features of BHEs and the surrounding aquifer. Type285 was compared with numerical models present in the literature (using hydrogeological software such as MODFLOW) and validated with the experimental data. The demonstration of the exchanged energy increase between the BHE and subsoil due to the increase in the groundwater flow velocity was carried out and evaluated. The choice to simulate BHE in TRNSYS using Type285 can be a fast and advantageous solution for HVAC system design.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.3390/en16031288

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Journal article2026

An advanced predictive battery control strategy for plus energy building flexibility: Simulation-based assessment and laboratory experimental setup

Dalla Maria E, Turrin F, Belleri A, Barchi G

Grazia Barchi, Annamaria Belleri, Francesco Turrin, Enrico Dalla Maria

Project: EU H2020 CULTURAL-E: Climate and cultural based design and market valuable technology solutions for Plus Energy Houses

DOI Source

DOI: 10.1016/j.segan.2026.102127

Francesco Turrin

About

Scientific Publications

A simulation-based framework for parametric energy renovation strategies in European buildings

An advanced predictive battery control strategy for plus energy building flexibility: Simulation-based assessment and laboratory experimental setup

Modelling thermocline dynamics in thermal energy storages: A computationally efficient reduced-order model approach

Prosumers and district heating: Experimental validation of strategies to improve thermal energy production and consumption

Effectiveness and sustainability of solutions sets aimed at plus energy buildings: A multi-case and multi-domain investigation

Numerical and experimental investigation of stratified water storage tanks: An enhanced adaptive-grid model

A New Type in TRNSYS 18 for Simulation of Borehole Heat Exchangers Affected by Different Groundwater Flow Velocities

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Scientific Publications

A simulation-based framework for parametric energy renovation strategies in European buildings

An advanced predictive battery control strategy for plus energy building flexibility: Simulation-based assessment and laboratory experimental setup

Modelling thermocline dynamics in thermal energy storages: A computationally efficient reduced-order model approach

Prosumers and district heating: Experimental validation of strategies to improve thermal energy production and consumption

Effectiveness and sustainability of solutions sets aimed at plus energy buildings: A multi-case and multi-domain investigation

Numerical and experimental investigation of stratified water storage tanks: An enhanced adaptive-grid model

A New Type in TRNSYS 18 for Simulation of Borehole Heat Exchangers Affected by Different Groundwater Flow Velocities