Two commercially available ceiling panels, one metal and one gypsum incorporating microencapsulated PCM were compared experimentally to determine their limitations and ability to provide an adequate indoor thermal environment. The experiments took place from February to May 2018 in a climate chamber at the Technical university of Denmark. In total, seven scenarios were evaluated, five with active cooling, where the flow rate and solar heat gains were varied, and two without. Results showed that according to EN 15251:2007, the RCPs maintained the best indoor thermal environment for 91% of occupancy time in Category III – operative temperature between 22oC and 27oC, and 75% in Category II – operative temperature between 23oC and 26oC, for a 140 kg/h flow rate and the reference solar heat gains. Alternatively, the PCM panels maintained Category III for only 48% of the time, while only 30% in Category II for a 220 kg/h flow rate and the reference solar heat gains. The PCM panel presented the ability to store the heat for a later time. However, the PCM panels’ solution proved inadequate in terms of heat storage capacity, pipe positioning and thermal conductivity while improvements are required in order to employ them in new and renovated buildings.

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Energy consumption, thermal environment and environmental impacts were analytically and experimentally studied for different types of heat emitters. The heat emitters studied were conventional radiator, ventilation radiator, and floor heating with medium-, low-, and very-low-temperature supply, respectively. The ventilation system in the lab room was a mechanical exhaust ventilation system that provided one air change per hour of fresh air through the opening in the external wall with a constant temperature of 5 • C, which is the mean winter temperature in Copenhagen. The parameters studied in the climate chamber were supply and return water temperature from the heat emitters, indoor temperature, and heat emitter surface temperature. Experiments showed that the mean supply water temperature for floor heating was the lowest, i.e. 30 • C, but it was close to the ventilation radiator, i.e. 33 • C. The supply water temperature in all measurements for conventional radiator was significantly higher than ventilation radiator and floor heating; namely, 45 • C. Experimental results indicated that the mean indoor temperature was close to the acceptable level of 22 • C in all cases. For energy calculations, it was assumed that all heat emitters were connected to a ground-source heat pump. Analytical calculations showed that using ventilation radiator and floor heating instead of conventional radiator resulted in a saving of 17% and 22% in heat pump's electricity consumption, respectively. This would reduce the CO 2 emission from the building's heating system by 21 % for the floor heating and by 18% for the ventilation radiator compared to the conventional radiator.

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