Staff

Mario Motta is an Associate Professor at the Department of Energy of Politecnico di Milano. He has taught, and continues to teach, courses on HVAC systems for low-energy buildings and solar thermal process engineering. He graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano and obtained an MSc in “Energy Systems and the Environment” from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK, in 1996, followed by a PhD in Technical Physics from the University of Genoa in 2002. From 2002 to 2004, he carried out postdoctoral research at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) in Freiburg, Germany, supported by a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship. His main research interests include building physics, HVAC systems for low-energy buildings, solar-assisted heating, cooling and refrigeration systems, solar thermal technologies, thermally driven refrigeration technologies, performance assessment of HVAC systems under real operating conditions, and district heating and cooling. Mario Motta served as coordinator of the “Solar Cooling” working group of the European Solar Thermal Technology Platform (ESTTP). From 2001 to 2004, he was involved in Tasks 25 and 38 on “Solar Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration” within the International Energy Agency’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (IEA-SHC). He was a member of CNES (National Commission for Solar Energy), established in August 2006 by the Italian Ministry for the Environment and Land and Sea Protection as an advisory body for regulatory activities. He also served as a member of the executive board and board of directors of the Italian Association for District Heating (AIRU). From October 2015 to December 2016, he co-coordinated the working group on the Decarbonization of the Italian Economy at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and participated in the working group responsible for drafting the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) and the Long-Term Strategy (LTS). He has been a member of scientific and advisory committees of research institutes and consortia, including Consorzio Poliedra since 2015 and the Advisory Board of i-STUTE (Interdisciplinary Centre for Storage, Transformation and Upgrading of Thermal Energy) since July 2013. He served as a member of the board of the Italian Thermotechnical Committee (CTI) for the 2016–2018 term, representing the Ministry for the Environment and Land and Sea Protection. At Politecnico di Milano, he coordinates the activities of the Energy Commission, an advisory body to the General Management on energy-related matters, of which he has been a member since its establishment in 2012. He has also served and continues to serve as a member of the governing board of the Department of Energy. Mario coordinates a research group of approximately 30 people, with stable research funding of around €1 million per year over the past five years. Since 2004, he has been a partner and coordinator of several completed and ongoing national and international projects. He is the co-author of more than 60 scientific papers and book chapters.

He graduated in Environmental Engineering from Politecnico di Milano. He currently works at the Department of Energy of Politecnico di Milano as Head of the RELAB laboratory, where he is responsible for the certification, development, and testing of heat pumps, chillers, and air-conditioning systems.At Politecnico di Milano, he has worked on applied research in solar thermal technologies for heating, cooling, and refrigeration, as well as on trigeneration and energy efficiency projects, with a particular focus on material procurement, construction management, and system commissioning.Previously, he worked for seven years at an engineering company in the Oil & Gas sector, where he was responsible for the Environmental Division.

Alice Dénarié is a building engineer with a PhD in Energy. Her research activity focuses primarily on the analysis of district heating and cooling (DH&C) networks and their integration with renewable energy sources, with particular emphasis on solar thermal systems. During her PhD, she specialized in the dynamic simulation of these systems. She has worked on numerous national and international projects involving UNEP, the European Union, national institutions, and district heating companies. She is also involved in outreach and training activities at AIRU, the Italian Association for District Heating.

He is a researcher at the Department of Energy. He holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Pisa and a PhD in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology from Politecnico di Milano. He has more than 10 years of experience in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and sustainability applied to buildings and industrial sectors. He is an expert in LCA modelling and in the development of tools, software, and datasets for assessing the environmental impact of products. He serves as the scientific coordinator of national and international research projects and is the author of scientific publications in international journals.

He is a Building Engineer and holds a PhD in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology from Politecnico di Milano. He has more than 10 years of experience in building energy efficiency and the integration of renewable energy sources. He is an expert in dynamic building energy simulation. He has served as one of the work package leaders of the European H2020 Heat4Cool project and as project leader for several other national and international research and innovation projects. He has been a teaching assistant for several university courses related to the HVAC sector and is currently an adjunct professor for the “Building Services Energy Modelling” course at Politecnico di Milano.

He is a researcher and adjunct professor of Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer at the Department of Energy of Politecnico di Milano. He holds a Master’s degree in Energy Engineering, a Master’s degree in Energy Efficiency, Decentralized and Renewable Energy Generation, and a PhD in Energy Engineering, obtained from Politecnico di Milano in 2011. His main research interest is renewable heating and cooling in buildings, with a particular focus on absorption technologies. He coordinates research activities at the RELAB laboratory and, since 2011, has been involved in national and international projects focused on the development and performance assessment of efficient and renewable heating and cooling systems.

He graduated in Physics from the University of Pavia and obtained a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the same university in 2010, focusing on energy planning at the local level. From 2010 to 2013, he collaborated with the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pavia as a subject-matter expert in energy transition planning. Since 2005, he has worked as an environmental specialist at the Provincial Administration of Pavia, where from 2014 to 2021 he served as Head of an Operational Unit, primarily dealing with the assessment of projects for the authorization of medium-sized and large companies under the Integrated Environmental Authorization (AIA) and Single Environmental Authorization (AUA) procedures. Since December 2021, he has been collaborating with RELAB as a research fellow, focusing on the development of energy system simulation models with investment optimization.

Mario Motta is a researcher and adjunct professor at the Department of Energy of Politecnico di Milano. He holds a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, a Master’s degree in Solar Engineering, and a PhD in Energy Engineering, all obtained from Politecnico di Milano in 2010. His main research interests include building physics, HVAC systems for low-energy buildings, solar-assisted heating, cooling and refrigeration, solar thermal technologies, thermally driven heat pumps, performance assessment of heating and cooling systems, and district heating and cooling. He is the co-author of approximately 60 scientific papers and book chapters. Since 2006, he has been involved in numerous EU-funded and national research projects focused on the integration of highly energy-efficient heating and cooling systems powered by renewable energy sources, including photovoltaic and solar thermal technologies, in buildings and district heating and cooling networks. Mario Motta served as coordinator of the “Solar Cooling” working group of the European Solar Thermal Technology Platform (ESTTP) and, from 2001 to 2004, participated in Tasks 25 and 38 on “Solar Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration” within the International Energy Agency’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (IEA-SHC). He was a member of CNES (National Commission for Solar Energy), established in August 2006 by the Italian Ministry for the Environment and Land and Sea Protection as an advisory body for regulatory activities. He also served as a member of the executive board and board of directors of the Italian Association for District Heating (AIRU). From October 2015 to December 2016, he co-coordinated the working group on the Decarbonization of the Italian Economy at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. He was also part of the working group responsible for drafting the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) and the Long-Term Strategy (LTS). He is a member of scientific and advisory committees of research institutes and consortia, including Consorzio Poliedra since 2015 and the Advisory Board of i-STUTE (Interdisciplinary Centre for Storage, Transformation and Upgrading of Thermal Energy) since July 2013. He served as a member of the board of the Italian Thermotechnical Committee (CTI) for the 2016–2018 term, representing the Ministry for the Environment and Land and Sea Protection. At Politecnico di Milano, he coordinates the activities of the Energy Commission, an advisory body to the General Management on energy-related matters, of which he has been a member since its establishment in 2012. He has also served and continues to serve as a member of the governing board of the Department of Energy. Mario coordinates a research group of approximately 30 people, with stable research funding of around €1 million per year over the past five years. He has been a partner and coordinator of several completed and ongoing national and international projects since 2004.

He has been a Mechanical Engineer since 1999, having graduated from Politecnico di Milano. After gaining several years of experience in the mechanical engineering sector and in international cooperation, he obtained an MSc in Renewable Energy Systems Technology from Loughborough University in 2007. Since 2008, he has been working at the Department of Energy of Politecnico di Milano, where he obtained a PhD in Energy Engineering in 2015. As a researcher, he has worked on concentrating solar thermal technologies and thermally driven air-conditioning systems. Since 2016, his research has focused on the development of gas-fired absorption heat pumps for residential heating.

She is a Management Engineer specializing in energy and holds a PhD in “Environmental and Energy Technology” from the University of Bergamo. She is currently responsible for accredited testing and quality management at RELAB, the accredited laboratory of Politecnico di Milano operating in the HVAC sector. Thanks to her extensive experience, she is an expert in assessing the performance of electrically and thermally driven heat pumps and HVAC systems according to current reference standards, for which she is a member of technical committees involved in their revision, as well as according to major certification programmes. She is currently involved in international projects focusing on the seasonal performance of next-generation heating and cooling systems through steady-state and dynamic testing procedures, as well as on the interaction between their performance in terms of indoor comfort and noise emissions.

He graduated in Building Engineering and began his professional career in the acoustics laboratory in 2006–2007, working on a psychoacoustics project focused on household appliances. In 2008–2009, he worked outside Politecnico di Milano for an engineering consultancy, specializing in environmental acoustics, acoustic assessments, and noise and vibration measurements, obtaining the qualification of “competent technician in environmental acoustics.” Since 2010, he has been responsible for measurement activities at the Acoustics Laboratory of the Department of Energy. Since the end of 2017, he has been part of the RELAB staff, working on testing activities as a test technician and head of acoustic testing.

He is an Energy Engineer and PhD student in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology at Politecnico di Milano.
His collaboration with the RELAB research group began with his master’s thesis on the energy and economic analysis of absorption heat pumps for residential applications. His PhD research focuses on the development of thermally driven heat pumps for the residential sector. He also works as a teaching assistant for the Technical Physics course.

He is an Energy Engineer and PhD student in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology at Politecnico di Milano. He is currently working on several projects involving HVAC system modelling and control optimization. His PhD research focuses on model predictive control for building management systems. He is also a teaching assistant for the Energy Engineering Master’s course “Solar Thermal Processes.”

He holds a degree in Environmental Engineering and a PhD in Energy System Modelling from the University of Pavia. As a Postdoctoral Researcher at the same institution, his research focused on incorporating short-term dynamics into long-term models to study scenarios with high penetration of electric vehicles and photovoltaic technologies. He is the author of the MELiSsa, NEMeSI, and Hot_Spot models for energy planning at national and subnational levels. Since 2023, he has been a Researcher at the University of Insubria, where he primarily focuses on modelling the Italian energy system under future scenarios. He has been collaborating with the RELAB Group since 2018.

She is a researcher at the Department of Energy of Politecnico di Milano and graduated in Building Engineering in 2020. She began collaborating with the RELAB Group through her master’s thesis, which focused on the development and validation of a thermal zone model using the Modelica language. She currently works on the development and validation of models for the dynamic simulation of building-energy systems using Modelica.

Francesco graduated in Energy Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2020. He began collaborating with the RELAB Group through his master’s thesis on the development of a model of the Italian energy system, with a detailed focus on the hydrogen supply chain to assess its role in decarbonization scenarios. His current research interests include the study of emerging technologies for the production, storage, transport, and use of hydrogen, as well as their application to the modelling of the future Italian energy system. In September 2021, he obtained his professional engineering qualification.

Marianna Pozzi graduated in Energy Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2020. She began collaborating with the RELAB Group through her master’s thesis, which focused on the georeferenced estimation of heating demand and the simulation of building renovation scenarios for the city of Milan using open data. In September 2021, she obtained her professional engineering qualification. Since November 2021, she has been a PhD student in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology. Her research focuses on the spatial and temporal characterization of thermal demand in buildings within the civil sector, both at the local and national scale, with the aim of assessing synergies between investments in the energy and heating sectors under decarbonization scenarios.

Lorenzo Cassetti graduated in Energy Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2020. He began collaborating with the RELAB Group in November 2021 as part of the National PhD Programme in Sustainable Development and Climate Change. His research focuses on the role of spatial resolution in energy system modelling, with particular emphasis on decarbonization scenarios.

He graduated in Energy Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in May 2021. His collaboration with the RELAB Group began with his master’s thesis, which focused on assessing the use of simplified models for simulating building-energy system interactions in renovation contexts. He currently works as a research fellow, focusing on the simplified modelling of complex building-energy systems integrated with district heating networks under decarbonization scenarios.

He obtained a Master’s degree in Building Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in April 2021, with a thesis on the application of drones equipped with video and thermal imaging cameras for building monitoring and diagnostics. He currently collaborates with RELAB as a research fellow, primarily working on data processing to develop tools and indicators for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies focused on the environmental footprint of energy systems and building technologies.

He obtained a Master’s degree in Energy Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in December 2021. His collaboration with the RELAB Group began with his master’s thesis on the characterization and modelling of a falling-film evaporator for adsorption refrigeration cycles. He currently works with RELAB as a research fellow, focusing his research on the study and modelling of adsorption cycles.

Esraa Elmaddah graduated in Energy Engineering from Auckland University of Technology in 2019. After completing her master’s degree, she worked as an energy consultant in Africa, particularly in Egypt, on several projects focused on energy efficiency, energy management, and renewable energy resources.For two years, she participated in the “Climate and Energy Policies Advocacy of Youth in the Arab World” programme organized by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Jordan.At the end of 2022, she began a PhD in Climate Change and Sustainable Development at IUSS Pavia, through a collaboration between the CARISMA group at IUSS and the RELAB Group. Her PhD research focuses on studying the impact of climate change on the Italian energy system.

He graduated in Energy Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in December 2021 with a thesis focused on the techno-economic analysis of hydrogen and biofuel production plants. Since 2022, he has been collaborating with the RELAB Group, focusing on the development and expansion of models for the analysis of integrated energy systems, with particular emphasis on the role of hydrogen as an intermediate integration vector. His research involves assessing potential pathways for improving the Italian national energy system towards the goal of full decarbonization by 2050.

He graduated in Energy Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in April 2022 and began collaborating with the RELAB Group in March 2021 as part of his master’s thesis, developed in collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. His thesis focused on the integration of a hybrid absorption-compression heat pump into the Gothenburg district heating network to recover waste heat generated by CO₂ capture plants. He currently works as a research fellow within the RELAB Group, primarily supporting the European PUSH2HEAT project, which focuses on the development and application of high-temperature heat pumps for the recovery of waste heat from industrial plants.

He is an Energy Engineer and PhD student in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology at Politecnico di Milano. His collaboration with the RELAB research group began with his master’s thesis on the modelling of a phase-change thermal energy storage system coupled with a heat pump and photovoltaic system. His research focuses on the development and numerical modelling of a small-scale heat pump prototype coupled with PCM thermal energy storage for residential applications.