A Solar Heating and Cooling System in a Nearly Zero-Energy Building: A Case Study in China

Abstract

The building sector accounts for more than 40% of the global energy consumption. This consumption may be lowered by reducing building energy requirements and using renewable energy in building energy supply systems. Therefore, a nearly zero-energy building, incorporating a solar heating and cooling system, was designed and built in Beijing, China. The system included a 35.17 kW cooling (10-RT) absorption chiller, an evacuated tube solar collector with an aperture area of 320.6 m 2 , two hot-water storage tanks (with capacities of 10 m 3 and 30 m 3 , respectively), two cold-water storage tanks (both with a capacity of 10 m 3 ), and a 281 kW cooling tower. Heat pump systems were used as a backup. At a value of 25.2%, the obtained solar fraction associated with the cooling load was close to the design target of 30%. In addition, the daily solar collector efficiency and the chiller coefficient of performance (COP) varied from 0.327 to 0.507 and 0.49 to 0.70, respectively.

Refrigeración solar de edificaciones. Un estado del arte

“…Then, the mechanical energy is used to produce the cooling effect (Papadopoulos et al, 2003). The fourth method consists in the activation of a thermal compression system, where a solar collector directly heats a working fluid running the generator of an absorption machine, thus causing the refrigerant effect (Díaz Torres et al, 2015;Z. Sun et al, 2017;Thirugnanasambandam et al, 2010).…”

Application of graded phase change materials for solar energy inter-seasonal storage heating and thermal storage characteristics

“…The development of renewable energy is in line with the proposal of the Chinese Energy Bureau in the 13th Five-Year Plan to save non-renewable energy and develop renewable energy [1][2][3]. The solar heating system is still suffering from unstable heating and low guarantee rate, so when using solar heating, other ways are needed for its auxiliary heating, and most of the heat collected by solar energy in the spring, summer and autumn seasons is wasted, and the excess solar heat in the season when heating is not needed is stored in a system that stores heat, and then the stored heat is raised in the season when heating is needed and delivered to the end of the user through pipes [4][5]. There are many ways to store heat, and there are great differences in their heat storage effects, which are determined according to the specific needs of the user [6][7].…”