An Innovative Solar-Biomass Energy System to Increase the Share of Renewables in Office Buildings

Abstract

Increasing the energy efficiency of residential and non-residential buildings is a crucial point towards the development of the sustainable cities of the future. To reach such a goal, the commonly employed intervention measures (for instance, on facades and glass) are not sufficient and efforts in reaching a fully renewable energy generation are mandatory. In this context, this paper discusses the applicability of a system with solar and biomass as the main energy sources in different climates for heating, cooling, domestic hot water and electricity generation in office buildings. The energy system includes solar thermal collectors with thermoelectric generators, a biomass boiler, a reversible heat pump/organic Rankine cycle and an adsorption chiller. The results showed that the system can operate with a share of renewables higher than 70% for all energy needs, with up to 80% of the overall energy demand supplied only by solar and biomass sources even in the northern locations.

A New Methodological Approach for the Evaluation of Scaling Up a Latent Storage Module for Integration in Heat Pumps

“…where E net,TES,dis is the net energy recovered from the module during the discharging process as defined in Equation (7).…”

“…Accordingly, the problem of making buildings more efficient has been widely addressed in the literature [3][4][5]. Hybrid systems, involving the use of multiple generation sources have proved to be able to reach an overall share of renewables higher than 70% in both residential [6] and office buildings [7]. However, one of the main challenges in the wide deployment of such systems is the proper design methodology.…”

Hybrid Cascade Heat Pump and Thermal-Electric Energy Storage System for Residential Buildings: Experimental Testing and Performance Analysis

“…To this aim, several possible paths were proposed, including passive solutions such as innovative materials for use as insulation and in façades and windows [2][3][4], active solutions with latent storages based on phase change material (PCM) slabs and panels [5][6][7], and energy systems based on solar energy. In particular, solar-assisted systems for heat pumping (in heating-dominated climates) [8] and solar cooling (in cooling-dominated climates) [9,10] were extensively studied for both residential [11] and tertiary applications [12]. Among the solar systems for residential applications for maximization of self-consumption, a common solution is the use of a reversible heat pump powered by PV (photo-voltaic) panels that supply the electricity needed to drive the compressor [13,14], or a heat pump connected to PV/T panels that can also supply the evaporation heat during winter season.…”

“…Palomba et al [12,37] evaluated the application of a hybrid solar-biomass system for heating, cooling, DHW, and electricity production consisting of evacuated tube solar collectors with thermo-electric generators, a cascade sorption-compression heat pump that can work in reverse mode as an ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle) and a biomass boiler. Results of an energy analysis for residential and office applications demonstrated the possibility of achieving a high overall share of renewables (i.e., higher than 70%) at different latitudes (Spain, Germany, Finland).…”

Economic and Environmental Assessment on Implementing Solar Renewable Energy Systems in Spanish Residential Homes

“…This leads to the need to focus on solving the renovation of existing buildings rather than promoting the development of new ones [35][36][37][38]. However, most of the current studies are aimed either at analyzing a case study (in a particular location [39,40], of a determined typology [41,42], with a specific technology [43,44], etc.) or at analyzing future developments that are not yet available on the market for the public [45,46].…”