A building’s facade is its main interface with the external environment, as it controls almost all energy flows in the building—losses and gains. In this context, the most recent invention of adaptive façades allows for the introduction of an optimized system for both daylight management and electrical energy production. The authors of the presented paper propose a novel adaptive façade system that is equipped with vertical shading fins of 1 × 4 m that are covered with PV panels. The fins are kinetic and rotate around a vertical axis in order to optimize solar irradiation for producing electricity. The presented adaptive façade is analyzed in two stages. Firstly, the number of vertical shading fins is optimized in the context of useful daylight illuminance (UDI) and daylight glare probability (DGP) using Radiance-cored software. Next, two scenarios of PV installation are verified for fixed and the Sun-tracking solution. The results show that the Sun-tracking system is more efficient than the fixed one, but electricity production is only increased by 3.21%. The reason for this is the fact that—while following the Sun’s azimuth position—fins shade each other and reduce the effective area of the adjacent PV panels. Based on this, the authors conclude that the Sun-tracking system might be justified due to its protective or decorative function and not because of its improved effectiveness in generating electrical energy.
In commercial power plants, water is used in many processes and its physical and chemical properties have a significant impact on the efficiency of energy and heat production as well as failure-free operation. One of the largest consumers of water in a power unit is the cooling system consisting of condensers and cooling towers. In cooling towers, the main mechanism for the decrease in temperature of the water is its partial evaporation, which causes a gradual decrease in the amount of circulating water and, on the other hand, a continuous increase in the concentration of chemical compounds in the closed system. Among others, an uncontrolled increase in the sulphate ion concentration in cooling water may cause the corrosion of the concrete parts of the hydraulic system as well as an increase in the deposition of calcium salts on the surfaces of the heat exchangers, thereby worsening the heat exchange processes inside the condenser. The daily demand for fresh water in power plants often reaches tens of thousands of cubic metres and so the amount of wastewater released also has a significant influence on the environment. Therefore the Polish Ministry of Environment and EU directives have introduced, from the beginning of 2016, new limits on the physical and chemical parameters of wastewater released to natural reservoirs. Taking into account the previous regulations, the authors present a mathematical model which allows the prediction of the daily changes of the sulphate ion concentration in the circulating water in a condenser-cooling tower closed cooling system and the calculation of the minimum wastewater flow rate fulfilling legal restrictions.
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