Swimming pools require a large amount of energy to provide comfort for the swimmers, therefore, energy saving actions must be studied in order to optimise their efficiency even when the existing systems are already of high performance. The case study relies on a public indoor swimming pool, in which dynamic simulations were developed by using TRNSYS software. Experimental measurement campaign was also performed in order to investigate the system operation to calibrate the numerical model by using the real data. Starting from the virtual model of the pool centre different energy efficiency actions have been analysed in the interest of find achievable energy savings. The first action is related to a new management of the pool centre and involves the reduction of evaporation losses from the water pool surface; the other action proposes to increase the heating supply coming from renewable source. The results of the analysis outline that both proposed solutions permit a reduction of total heat needs and therefore of the amount of primary energy. This permits to carry out replicable analyses by adapting the studied plant system to different operating swimming centres systems, investigating their efficiencies and identifying solutions for energy saving actions.
The current paper presents the state-of-the-art of the ongoing IDEAS research project, funded under the Horizon 2020 EU framework programme. The project involves fourteen partners from six European countries and proposes a multi-source cost-effective renewable energy system for the decarbonisation of the building envelope. The system features a radiant floor fed by a heat pump for the building thermal management. The heat pump can exploit sun, air, and/or ground as thermal sources through the use of photovoltaic/thermal solar panels, air heat exchangers, and shallow ground flat-panel heat exchangers. Thermal energy storage is achieved by means of phase change materials spread along several system components, such as: radiant floor to increase its thermal inertia, solar panels for cooling purposes, ground to enhance soil thermal capacity. Within the project framework, a small-scale building, featuring a plethora of sensors for test purposes, and two large-scale buildings are meant to be equipped with the renewable energy system proposed. The small-scale building is currently in operation, and the first results are discussed in the present work. Preliminary data suggest that while multi-source systems coupled with heat pumps are particularly effective, it is complex to obtain suitable thermal energy storages on urban scale.
The improvement of energy efficiency in the building sector is one of the most promising actions for achieving the energy and environmental goals of the European Community. The deep retrofit of buildings is obviously the best solution in terms of energy performance result. When the deep retrofit is not allowed or possible, the simple maintenance of the building envelope and plant is usually done to assure the operation over time. This type of intervention could require the installation of new HVAC systems that could include a HP, which nowadays represents one of the key devices for the energy saving and the sustainable development. This work regards the study of the energy performance of a swimming Pool Centre in North-East Italy. The objective of this work is the exploitation of an outdoor swimming pool as a heat source for a HP system. The HP system uses two different heat sources, the air and the water. The final SCOP of the double source HP system has been calculated and compared with an air source HP solution. This analysis has been carried out by means of dynamic energy simulations in TRNSYS environment.
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