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A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2017) | Viewed by 29499

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Prof. Dr. Francesco Calise

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Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, 80125 Naples, Italy
Interests: fuel cells; advanced optimization techniques; solar thermal systems; concentrating photovoltaic/thermal photovoltaic systems; energy saving in buildings; solar heating and cooling; organic Rankine cycles; geothermal energy; dynamic simulations of energy systems; renewable polygeneration systems
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Prof. Dr. Massimo Dentice D'Accadia

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Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, P.le Tecchio 80, Naples, Italy
Interests: advanced energy system; solar heating and cooling; combined heat and power (CHP); energy efficiency; renewable energy; energy policy; geothermal energy; biomass and waste-to-energy systems
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Prof. Dr. Annamaria Buonomano

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1. Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, 80126 Naples, Italy
2. Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering, Concordia University, Montréal, QC H3G 1M8, Canada
Interests: modeling; simulation and optimization of innovative building-plant systems; advanced building integrated envelope techniques; net zero energy buildings; renewable energies and innovative HVAC systems; solar heating and cooling systems; photovoltaic solar thermal systems; polygeneration; vehicle to building
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Dear Colleagues,

Solar energy is the largest and most impressive source of energy available worldwide. Unfortunately, only a small amount of solar energy potential is used. Among the available technologies, supported by global actions to improve renewable energy access, solar heating and cooling systems (SHC) are capable of greatly exploiting the solar radiation to provide building space heating and cooling all over the year. The use of energy in refrigeration can significantly reduce the growth of the electric energy demand, especially during summer.

SHC may significantly contribute to achieve the challenging goals of greenhouse gas emissions reduction, energy efficiency improvement, and increase of renewables share, as highlighted by the recent global agreements among countries regarding new national emissions targets by 2025 or 2030 (Paris, December 2015, COP21). In particular, as primary energy consumption due to space heating and cooling increase, the building sector shows a high potential of energy savings. In this regard, in order to reduce the growing primary energy consumption due to space heating and cooling in residential and commercial buildings, it is crucial to support more effective policies, enhancing the portfolio of solar energy technologies.

In this framework, SHC systems are very promising and show a big market potential, playing a leading role in the-long term future of our energy system. Nowadays, researchers and institution are involved in the investigation of SHC systems, focusing on several topics, such as dynamic simulations, thermal storage, heat driven chiller, thermoeconomic optimizations, exergetic analyses, experimental data, etc. Nevertheless, in order to increase the SHC market uptake, limited by the system capital cost, a significant effort in terms of research, successful demonstration projects and incentive policies are required more and more.

This Special Issue aims at collecting recent and relevant studies dealing with solar heating and cooling technology.

Prof. Francesco Calise
Prof. Massimo Dentice d’Accadia
Prof. Annamaria Buonomano
Guest Editors

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Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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Keywords

solar cooling, solar heating
solar collectors
absorption refrigeration
adsorption chiller
desiccant cooling
ejector cooling
dynamic simulations
experimental analyses

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

3468 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Experimental and Numerical Analyses of a Flat Plate Photovoltaic/Thermal Solar Collector

by Francesco Calise, Rafal Damian Figaj and Laura Vanoli

Energies 2017, 10(4), 491; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en10040491 - 06 Apr 2017

Cited by 40 | Viewed by 5320

Abstract

This paper presents a one-dimensional finite-volume model of an unglazed photovoltaic/thermal (PVT) solar collector. The unit consists of a conventional solar photovoltaic (PV) collector coupled with a suitable heat exchanger. In particular, the collector includes a roll bond heat exchanger and it is not equipped with back and frame insulation. The system is discretized along the flow direction (longitudinal) of the cogenerative collector. For each finite-volume element of the discretized computational domain, mass and energy balances are implemented. The collector geometry and materials parameters are taken from a commercially available device. An on-field experimental investigation is performed in order to validate the proposed model. The model is used to evaluate both electrical and thermodynamic parameters for each element of the domain and for fixed operating conditions. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is also performed in order to investigate the energetic performance of the cogenerative collector as a function of the main design/environmental parameters. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Solar Cooling and Heating)

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9785 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Dynamic Simulation of a Trigeneration Scheme for Domestic Purposes Based on Hybrid Techniques

by Luis Acevedo, Javier Uche, Alejandro Del Almo, Fernando Círez, Sergio Usón, Amaya Martínez and Isabel Guedea

Energies 2016, 9(12), 1013; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en9121013 - 30 Nov 2016

Cited by 19 | Viewed by 5087

Abstract

In this paper, the design of a system providing electricity by coupling photovoltaic/thermal (PVT) collectors and a wind turbine (WT), sanitary hot water (SHW) coming from the PVT and evacuated tube collectors (ETCs) and fresh water (FW) produced in two seawater desalting facilities (membrane distillation, MD, and reverse osmosis, RO), has been carefully analyzed by means of a dynamic model developed in TRNSYS^®. This analysis is compulsory to operate a lab-scale pilot plant that is being erected at Zaragoza, Spain. A new model-type has been included in TRNSYS^® in order to include the MD unit in the scheme. A sensitivity analysis of some free-design variables, such that the ETC surface, PVT and ETC tilt, water storage tank, batteries capacities, and mass flow rates delivered to the SHW service and/or feeding the MD unit has been performed in order to propose the definite design of the scheme. The proposed base case was able to produce up to 15,311 L per year in the MD system and cover an electric energy demand of 1890 kWh. Coverage of SHW, water (including RO and MD) and power is respectively 99.3%, 100% and 70%. However, daily and yearly assessment of FW, SHW and power produced with the optimized design gave a better coverage of water and energy demands for a typical single family home. The improved and definite design was able to increase its MD production in 35% and the electric energy in 7% compared with base case. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Solar Cooling and Heating)

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5852 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Retrofitted Solar Domestic Hot Water Systems for Swedish Single-Family Houses—Evaluation of a Prototype and Life-Cycle Cost Analysis

by Luis Ricardo Bernardo, Henrik Davidsson and Erik Andersson

Energies 2016, 9(11), 953; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en9110953 - 15 Nov 2016

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 7123

Abstract

According to recent technology road maps, system cost reductions and development of standardised plug-and-function systems are some of the most important goals for solar heating technology development. Retrofitting hot water boilers in single-family houses when installing solar collectors has the potential to significantly reduce both material and installation costs. Previous studies have investigated such retrofitting, using theoretical simulations and laboratory tests, but no actual installations were made and tested in practice. This article describes the installation, measured performance and cost effectiveness of a retrofitting solution that converts existing domestic hot water heaters to a solar domestic hot water system. The measured performance is characterised by the monthly and annual solar fractions. The cost effectiveness is evaluated by a life-cycle cost analysis, comparing the retrofitted system to a conventional solar domestic hot water system and the case without any solar heating system. Measurements showed that approximately 50% of the 5000 kWh/year of domestic hot water consumption was saved by the retrofitted system in south Sweden. Such savings are in agreement with previous estimations and are comparable to the energy savings when using a conventional solar domestic hot water system. The life-cycle cost analysis showed that, according to the assumptions and given climate, the return on investment of the retrofitted system is approximately 17 years, while a conventional system does not reach profitability during its lifetime of 25 years. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Solar Cooling and Heating)

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1567 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Control Optimization of Solar Thermally Driven Chillers

by Antoine Dalibard, Daniel Gürlich, Dietrich Schneider and Ursula Eicker

Energies 2016, 9(11), 864; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en9110864 - 25 Oct 2016

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4858

Abstract

Many installed solar thermally driven cooling systems suffer from high auxiliary electric energy consumption which makes them not more efficient than conventional compression cooling systems. A main reason for this is the use of non-efficient controls with constant set points that do not allow a chiller power modulation at partial-load and therefore lead to unnecessary high power consumption of the parasitics. The aims of this paper are to present a method to control efficiently solar thermally driven chillers, to demonstrate experimentally its applicability and to quantify the benefits. It has been shown that the cooling capacity of a diffusion absorption chiller can be modulated very effectively by adjusting both the temperature and the flow rate of the cooling water. With the developed approach and the use of optimization algorithms, both the temperature and the flow rate can be controlled simultaneously in a way that the cooling load is matched and the electricity consumption is minimized. Depending on the weather and operating conditions, electricity savings between 20% and 60% can be achieved compared to other tested control approaches. The highest savings are obtained when the chiller is operated at partial load. The presented method is not restricted to solar cooling systems and can also be applied to other conventional heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Full article

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14421 KiB

Open AccessArticle

CFD Analysis on the Thermal Hydraulic Performance of an SAH Duct with Multi V-Shape Roughened Ribs

by Anil Kumar and Man-Hoe Kim

Energies 2016, 9(6), 415; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en9060415 - 28 May 2016

Cited by 25 | Viewed by 5974

Abstract

This study presents the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics in a rib-roughened SAH (solar air heater) channel. The artificial roughness of the rectangular channel was in the form of a thin circular wire in discrete multi V-pattern rib geometries. The effect of this geometry on heat transfer, fluid flow, and performance augmentation was investigated using the CFD (computational fluid dynamics). The roughness parameters were a relative discrete distance of 0.69, a relative rib height of 0.043, a relative rib pitch of 10, a relative rib width of 6.0, and a flow-attack-angle of 60°. The discrete width ratios and Reynolds numbers ranged from 0.5 to 2.0 and from 2000 to 20,000, respectively. The CFD results using the renormalization k-epsilon model were in good agreement with the empirical relationship. This model was used to investigate the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics in the multi V-pattern rib roughened SAH channel. The thermo-hydraulic performance was found to be the best for the discrete width ratio of 1.0. A discrete multi V-pattern rib combined with dimple staggered ribs also had better overall thermal performance compared to other rib shapes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Solar Cooling and Heating)

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