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In order to meet global challenges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the implementation of solar systems for residential purposes is an emergent task. Commonly liquid-based solar systems are used to heat up shower and pool water. More recently space heating systems have become part of sustainable buildings. An alternative could be a solar system that uses air as energy carrier. This study analyses the retrofit of such a system into a 40-year-old building. Starting from the analysis of the energy demand of a selected room, a solar air heater was designed, simulated and evaluated experimentally. The solar efficiency of the constructed collector reached 60%.

In European countries seasonal thermal energy storage is an emergent task due to availability of solar energy in summer and thermal energy demand in winter. In this study the performance of an uninsulated buried storage tank is analyzed. Summer temperatures reached 45 °C in the storage tank and 22 °C in the soil, 1 m from the tank shell. Wintertime temperature of the storage tank dropped to 8 °C, near the freezing limit of the heat pump, and soil cooled down to 9 °C. While in wintertime heat transfer from earth to water was the limiting factor, a summertime temperature difference of more than 20 °C allowed enough energy transport to charge the soil storage system. An analytical model showed that more than 50% of the solar energy stored could be recovered by this application.

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