Primary Energy Saving Potential of Solar Cooling in Residential Buildings

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose´ Uren˜a Lo´pez ◽  
Andreas Klesse ◽  
Hermann-J. Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Energy Saving ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Primary Energy ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Solar Thermal ◽  
Thermal System ◽  
Primary Energy Consumption ◽  
Domestic Hot Water ◽  
Solar Cooling ◽  
Solar Thermal System

Cooling in residential buildings becomes more important due to the rising insulation requirements and the increasing human comfort. Therefore, systems that provide heating as well as cooling with a low primary energy consumption will be in future more preferred than conventional single-unit systems. Solar thermal installations can here provide in addition to the domestic hot water and heating demand a significant contribution to the cooling requirement in residential buildings. In this study, low-energy residential buildings with different solar heating and cooling systems are analyzed concerning their primary energy consumption. To cover a large range of different weather conditions, two locations (Madrid and Wu¨rzburg) with different solar energy supply are considered. Further, a conventional solar heating supply system including one or more typical room air-conditioners is as reference system selected. The different systems are modeled by the system simulation platform TRNSYS. In a first step, the question is addressed of whether a solar thermal system with standard dimensioning, taking the domestic hot water and heating demand into account, is sufficient to meet the cooling requirements. To cover the cooling demands, a small-scale thermally driven absorption chiller has been selected. In a next step, the studied systems are compared in terms of primary energy saving as a function of the solar cooling fraction. The simulation results have shown that regions with a high solar energy supply do not take advantage of solar thermal cooling, due to the higher cooling demand. On average, 70% of the cooling demands can be covered by a standard dimensioned solar thermal system. At the same time, a primary energy saving up to 90%, compared to currently installed room air-conditioning units can be achieved.

Energetic Behaviour of a Solar Thermal System Producing Domestic Hot Water and Preheating the Ventilation Air

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Carbajo Jiménez ◽  
Antoine Leconte ◽  
Ophélie Ouvrier Bonnaz ◽  
Etienne Wurtz ◽  
Gilles Fraisse
Keyword(s):  
Hot Water ◽  
Solar Thermal ◽  
Thermal System ◽  
Domestic Hot Water ◽  
Solar Thermal System

scholarly journals Technical feasibility study of net-zero energy house for Canada - case study of Team North 2009 US DOE Solar Decathlon competition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toktam Saeid
Keyword(s):  
Heat Pump ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Solar Thermal ◽  
Thermal System ◽  
Pv System ◽  
Pump System ◽  
Heat Pump System ◽  
Solar Decathlon ◽  
Variable Capacity ◽  
Solar Thermal System

In October 2009, Team North competed in the US DOE 2009 Solar Decathlon competition. Team North's mission was to design and deliver North House, an energy efficient solar-powered home while training Canada's next generation of leaders in sustainable design. In North House, the PV system on the roof was the primary energy generation, complimented by a custom PV cladding system on the south, east and west facades. A solar assisted heat pump system, including a three-tank heat transfer and storage system, the horizontally mounted evacuated-tube solar thermal collectors on the roof and a variable capacity heat pump met the hot water and space heating demands. A second variable capacity heat pump was utilized for space cooling. The solar thermal system was studied using TRNSYS simulation. For the initial assessments the simulations were run for Baltimore. Then, the analyses were extended to different cities across Canada. In all scenarios the same house was linked to the system. The minimum annual solar fraction of the different cities was 64% and it rose up to 81%. Finally, the data measured during the competition were analyzed and compared with the data resulting from the simulation. According to competition measures, during the 10 days of competition in Washington DC, the PV system generated 271.6kWh of electricity and the solar thermal system produced 91.7kWh while the house consumption was 294.1kWh. As a result, North House was evidently a net-positive house.

Solar Thermal Driven Cooling System for a Data Center in Albuquerque New Mexico

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Fumo ◽  
V. Bortone ◽  
J. C. Zambrano
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Data Center ◽  
Data Centers ◽  
Primary Energy ◽  
Continuous Operation ◽  
Solar Thermal ◽  
Primary Energy Consumption ◽  
Solar Collectors ◽  
Absorption Chiller ◽  
Solar Cooling

Data centers are facilities that primarily contain electronic equipment used for data processing, data storage, and communications networking. Regardless of their use and configuration, most data centers are more energy intensive than other buildings. The continuous operation of Information Technology equipment and power delivery systems generates a significant amount of heat that must be removed from the data center for the electronic equipment to operate properly. Since data centers spend up to half their energy on cooling, cooling systems becomes a key factor for energy consumption reduction strategies and alternatives in data centers. This paper presents a theoretical analysis of an absorption chiller driven by solar thermal energy as cooling plant alternative for data centers. Source primary energy consumption is used to compare the performance of different solar cooling plants with a standard cooling plant. The solar cooling plants correspond to different combinations of solar collector arrays and thermal storage tank, with a boiler as source of energy to ensure continuous operation of the absorption chiller. The standard cooling plant uses an electric chiller. Results suggest that the solar cooling plant with flat-plate solar collectors is a better option over the solar cooling plant with evacuated-tube solar collectors. However, although solar cooling plants can decrease the primary energy consumption when compared with the standard cooling plant, the net present value of the cost to install and operate the solar cooling plants are higher than the one for the standard cooling plant.

scholarly journals Analysis of the scope of thermo-modernization for a residential building in order to transform it into a low-energy building

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 00069 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maciej Knapik
Keyword(s):  
Energy Demand ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Primary Energy ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Low Energy ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Domestic Hot Water ◽  
Modernization Process

The article presents the problem of thermo-modernization and the reduction of energy demand for heating purposes in existing residential buildings. The thermo-modernization process has to adapt the existing building to the standard of a building with low energy demand and applicable regulations. Low-energy constructions are a result of introduction of new solutions in building design process. Their main objective is to achieve a significant reduction in demand for renewable primary energy, necessary to cover the needs of these buildings, mostly related to their heating, ventilation and domestic hot water. The article presents the results of the analysis and calculation of selected thermo-modernization variants. The results showed that thermo-modernization process of existing residential buildings is justified both energetically and economically.

scholarly journals Cost-Benefit Analysis of Hybrid Photovoltaic/Thermal Collectors in a Nearly Zero-Energy Building

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 1582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conti ◽  
Schito ◽  
Testi
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Electrical Energy ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Primary Energy ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Solar Thermal ◽  
Primary Energy Consumption ◽  
Solar Thermal Energy ◽  
Zero Energy

This paper analyzes the use of hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PVT) collectors in nearly zero-energy buildings (NZEBs). We present a design methodology based on the dynamic simulation of the whole energy system, which includes the building energy demand, a reversible heat pump as generator, the thermal storage, the power exchange with the grid, and both thermal and electrical energy production by solar collectors. An exhaustive search of the best equipment sizing and design is performed to minimize both the total costs and the non-renewable primary energy consumption over the system lifetime. The results show that photovoltaic/thermal technology reduces the non-renewable primary energy consumption below the nearly zero-energy threshold value, assumed as 15 kWh/(m2·yr), also reducing the total costs with respect to a non-solar solution (up to 8%). As expected, several possible optimal designs exist, with an opposite trend between energy savings and total costs. In all these optimal configurations, we figure out that photovoltaic/thermal technology favors the production of electrical energy with respect to the thermal one, which mainly occurs during the summer to meet the domestic hot water requirements and lower the temperature of the collectors. Finally, we show that, for a given solar area, photovoltaic/thermal technology leads to a higher reduction of the non-renewable primary energy and to a higher production of solar thermal energy with respect to a traditional separate production employing photovoltaic (PV) modules and solar thermal (ST) collectors.

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