ALICE MUGNINI

Alice Mugnini received a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering (cum laude) in 2015 and a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering (cum laude) in 2017 from Università Politecnica delle Marche (UNIVPM). She received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from UNIVPM in 2021 with the thesis “Energy flexibility and demand management in buildings.” From August 2021 to January 2025, she was a contract lecturer at eCampus Telematic University; since February 2025, she has been a Researcher in Tenure Track (RTT) at the same University. In addition, from January 2020 to January 2025 she was a Research Fellow at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at UNIVPM.

Her research activities focus on the study of phenomena related to the quantification, activation, and management of energy flexibility in energy systems, ranging from individual buildings to large-scale multi-energy systems. Specifically, her research includes:

  • Characterization and development of methodologies for quantifying the energy flexibility derived from thermal demand in individual buildings and building clusters with heat pumps;
  • Study and implementation of advanced control systems in buildings (e.g., Model Predictive Control – MPC);
  • Analysis of heat pumps and integrated design techniques for heat pump systems;
  • Study of energy flexibility in multi-energy systems.

Email: alice.mugnini@uniecampus.it

Main publications:

  1. Arteconi A., Mugnini A., Polonara F., Energy flexible buildings: A methodology for rating the flexibility performance of buildings with electric heating and cooling system. Applied Energy. Volume 251, 1 October 2019, 113387. DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.113387
  2. Mugnini A., Coccia G., Polonara F.; Arteconi A., Potential of District Cooling Systems: A Case Study on Recovering Cold Energy from Liquefied Natural Gas Vaporization. Energies 2019, 12(15), 3027. DOI: doi.org/10.3390/en12153027
  3. Mugnini A., Coccia G., Polonara F.; Arteconi A., Performance Assessment of Data-Driven and Physical-Based Models to Predict Building Energy Demand in Model Predictive Controls. Energies 2020, 13(12), 3125. DOI: doi.org/10.3390/en13123125
  4. Coccia G., Mugnini A., Polonara F.; Arteconi A., Artificial-neural-network-based model predictive control to exploit energy flexibility in multi-energy systems comprising district cooling. Energy. 2021, 119958. DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2021.119958
  5. Mugnini A., Coccia G., Polonara F.; Arteconi A., Energy Flexibility as Additional Energy Source in Multi-Energy Systems with District Cooling. Energies 2021, 14, 519. DOI: doi.org/10.3390/en14020519
  6. Mugnini A., Comodi G., Salvi D., Arteconi A., Energy flexible CHP-DHN systems: Unlocking the flexibility in a real plant. Energy Conversion and Management: X, Volume 12, 2021, 100110. DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.ecmx.2021.100110
  7. Mugnini A., Polonara F.; Arteconi A., Energy flexibility curves to characterize the residential space cooling sector: The role of cooling technology and emission system, Energy and Buildings, Volume 253, 2021, 111335, DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2021.111335
  8. Mugnini A., Ferracuti F., Lorenzetti M., Comodi G., Arteconi A., Advanced control techniques for CHP-DH systems: A critical comparison of Model Predictive Control and Reinforcement Learning, Energy Conversion and Management: X, Volume 15, 2022, 100264, DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.ecmx.2022.100264
  9. Mugnini A., Polonara F., Arteconi A., Quantification of the energy flexibility of residential building clusters: Impact of long-term refurbishment strategies of the italian building stock, Energy and Buildings, Volume 296, 2023, 113416, ISSN 0378-7788, DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2023.113416
  10. Mugnini A., Ferracuti F., Lorenzetti M., Comodi G, Arteconi A., Day-ahead optimal scheduling of smart electric storage heaters: A real quantification of uncertainty factors, Energy Reports, Volume 9, 2023, Pages 2169-2184, ISSN 2352-4847, DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2023.01.013
  11. Mugnini A., Ramallo-González A.P., Parreño A., Molina-Garcia A., Skarmeta A.F., Arteconi A., Dynamic building thermal mass clustering for energy flexibility assessment: An application to demand response events, Energy and Buildings, Volume 308, 2024, 114011, ISSN 0378-7788, doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2024.114011
  12. Mugnini A., Comodi G., Arteconi A. Heat pumps to upgrade existing CHP-DHN systems towards new generation thermal networks, Energy Reports, Volume 12, 2024, Pages 820-833, ISSN 2352-4847, doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2024.06.063
  13. Mugnini A., Evens M., Arteconi A. Model predictive controls for residential buildings with heat pumps: Experimentally validated archetypes to simplify the large-scale application, Energy and Buildings., Volume 320, 2024, 114632, ISSN 0378-7788, doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2024.114632
  14. Alice Mugnini, Flavio Caresana, Barbara Marchetti, Fabio Polonara, Alessia Arteconi, Integrated design of heat pump systems: A multi-objective optimized design methodology considering the mutual influence of design and control, Applied Thermal Engineering, 2025, 126323, ISSN 1359-4311, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2025.126323