Sustainable Cities and Society 63 (2020) 102479 Available online 13 September 2020 2210-6707/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Combining bioclimatic strategies with effcient HVAC plants to reach nearly-zero energy building goals in Mediterranean climate Roberto Stasi a, *, Stefania Liuzzi a , Salvatore Paterno b , Francesco Ruggiero a , Pietro Stefanizzi a , Antonio Stragapede b a Polytechnic University of Bari, DICAR - Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Via Edoardo Orabona, 4, 70126 Bari, Italy b CFE, Centro di Fisica Edile, Via Vincenzo Ragni, 5, 70024 Gravina in Puglia, Italy A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: nZEB Mediterranean climate Earth-to-air exchanger BPS Monitoring Fanger’s model Gap performance Indoor thermal comfort ABSTRACT The spread of nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEB) currently refects the European Commission’s frst policy step in fghting climate change through the construction sector. This paper analyses the design criteria and ther- modynamic behaviour of an nZEB building in a Mediterranean climate and how its various properties affect its fnal energy consumption. The case study is a single-family dwelling of 309 m 2 located in Mesagne, a small city in South Italy (Apulia, BR). Using DesignBuilder software, a dynamic simulation of the overall building-plant system performance estimated the building’s hygrothermal comfort and the energy consumption of air condi- tioning. Monitoring of in-feld energy consumption and production validated the building performance simu- lation model and evaluated its performance gap. Subsequently, a parametric analysis of various scenarios assessed the impact on total energy consumption of different plant system confgurations and a bioclimatic criterion adopted in the building: one without earth-to-air heat exchanger, one without heat recovery and recirculation and one without sunscreens. This research shows how a passive building design combined with the use of an effcient plant system can easily meet the nZEB requirements with high performance in terms of energy consumption and indoor thermal comfort. 1. Introduction A growing awareness of the effects of anthropic action on the climate and the undoubted acceptance of the exhaustibility of fossil fuels are encouraging the building and design sector towards a renewed aware- ness of sustainability. This new approach recognises the need to rework the cornerstones of design in order to rediscover a balance between man and environment, which is refected in the now-recognised principles of sustainability and energy conservation. To pursue this aim, design processes should rethink present-day cities, starting from the building concept. In Europe, approximately 40 % of the fnal energy consumption and 36 % of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions depends on the construction sector. The residential sector alone represents the 26.1 % of fnal energy consumption and the 16.6 % of gross inland energy consumption in the European Union (EU) (Eurostat, 2019). Thus, issues of energy effciency and energy saving are assuming higher and higher importance in Eu- ropean energy policies. In 2007, the "2020-20 Climate Energy Pack- age" promoted by the European Commission was enacted to ensure, by 2020, a 20 % reduction in EU greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 values, a 20 % increase in the share of total energy need met by renewable sources and a 20 % global upsurge in energy effciency. As a frst step towards transforming cities into smart and sustainable ones, the European Union Directive 2010/31 (European Parliament, 2010) introduced a requirement to build only nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEB) from 2021 onwards. (Becchio, Corgnati, Delmastro, Fabi, & Lombardi, 2016; Kylili & Fokaides, 2015). Growing attention has been paid to this issue since 2010, with stricter requirements regarding building energy consumption and CO 2 emissions introduced. The latest European Directive 844/2018 (European Parliament, 2018) updates 2010 one by reinforcing the nZEB targets and focusing especially on energy refurbishment within existing building stock, the largest share of building stock in Europe. According to the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPDB) recast, member states are required to iden- tify and develop long-term national strategies to improve the effciency of residential and non-residential buildings, public and private, in order to reduce EU emissions by 80 %–95 % by 2050. This ambitious goal requires a more complex approach to the building design process that * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: roberto.stasi@poliba.it (R. Stasi), stefania.liuzzi@poliba.it (S. Liuzzi), centrodifsicaedile@gmail.com (S. Paterno), francesco.ruggiero@poliba.it (F. Ruggiero), pietro.stefanizzi@poliba.it (P. Stefanizzi), centrodifsicaedile@gmail.com (A. Stragapede). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Sustainable Cities and Society journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scs https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2020.102479 Received 23 May 2020; Received in revised form 2 September 2020; Accepted 7 September 2020