Thermal Behavior of a BIPV Combined with Water Storage: An Experimental Analysis

Abstract

Buildings play an active role in the global energy consumption and are required to not only minimize their energy use, but also generate energy in a sustainable manner. The integration of renewable energies in building elements can improve their overall performance, as they are able to replace common construction materials, while offering both electrical and thermal energy. The scope of this paper is to present the first results of an experimental study of a Building-Integrated Photovoltaic system combined with a water storage tank (BIPV-WS), a combined integration not extensively studied yet. Both layers are separated by a ventilated air cavity, and the thermal behavior of the system was analyzed experimentally in real functioning conditions. The water tank performs as a thermal storage, maintaining a regular temperature of about 20–30 °C during a typical winter day of Lisbon for a period of 11 h. Moreover, through the ventilation of the air cavity, the heat provided by the solar panel was naturally recovered to the indoors of the building, while keeping the temperature high enough to heat up the water. During summer, the ventilated BIPV-WS enabled beneficial nocturnal heat loss while delaying diurnal space heating.

The Use of Key Enabling Technologies in the Nearly Zero Energy Buildings Monitoring, Control and Intelligent Management

“…The ARGUS Presence Master with IR detected illuminance within a range of 10 to 1000 lux [23]. Additionally, meteorological data were collected on-site through a weather station installed on the roof of Solar XXI [25]. The installed sensors allowed monitoring diverse aspects of the monitored room, such as temperature; relative humidity; carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) concentration, with a SED-CO 2 -G-5045 [22]; and luminosity, with an ARGUS Presence Master with IR [23], which guided the implemented algorithms in the installed systems.…”

“…The ARGUS Presence Master with IR detected illuminance within a range of 10 to 1000 lux [23]. Additionally, meteorological data were collected on-site through a weather station installed on the roof of Solar XXI [25].…”

“…These systems act as an outer shell to the current building envelope, which enables the reduction in thermal fluxes to the outdoors [30] and increase in thermal mass, which is characterised by having each an interior air cavity separating the building and the vertical PV cover (four BP3160 (160 W) [31] solar panels) and have four openings, two in the exterior (above and below the PV cover) and two in the interior (on the upper and lower section of the wall) which allow several airflow configurations. During PV operation, electric energy conversion generates heat, leading to high module temperatures [25,32,33]. The airflow configurations allow (natural or mechanical) ventilation to remove heat from the PV modules, leading to higher PV efficiencies [25,32,[34][35][36] and reducing potential overheating while also potentially heating or removing heat from the indoor air space, as represented in Figure 6 [37].…”

“…During PV operation, electric energy conversion generates heat, leading to high module temperatures [25,32,33]. The airflow configurations allow (natural or mechanical) ventilation to remove heat from the PV modules, leading to higher PV efficiencies [25,32,[34][35][36] and reducing potential overheating while also potentially heating or removing heat from the indoor air space, as represented in Figure 6 [37]. In Figure 6, four configurations are described.…”

On the Optimization of Electrical Water Heaters: Modelling Simulations and Experimentation

“…Due to the aggravation of an energy crisis, Scientists recommend exploiting renewable sources of energy [1][2][3] and to simultaneously manage the energy consumption as a last step to reduce the severity of this problem [4][5][6][7]. The energy management field is under continuous development nowadays due to the diversity and complexity of components involved in modern thermal systems.…”