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Description:
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The purpose of this research is to develop methods that reduce energy consumption in a
residential building in a hot and humid climate region (Thailand ) using efficient architectural
building components and renewable energy (solar energy ) to produce electricity , domestic hot
water , and supplemental cooling by night sky radiation .
Improving the architectural building components , including building materials , is an option
to reduce energy consumption in a building . Using renewable energy sources is another option to
reduce the consumption of non -renewable energy . In residential buildings , solar energy has been
utilized for space heating and domestic hot water using active solar collector systems and for
generating electricity using photovoltaic (PV ) systems . One photovoltaic system , the hybrid
photovoltaic -thermal (PV -T ) collector system , has been developed by several researchers over the
last 20 years . The hybrid photovoltaic -thermal (PV -T ) collector system is a combination
photovoltaic (for producing electricity ) and solar thermal collector (for producing hot water ) .
Theoretical and experimental studies of this collector have highlighted the advantages of the hybrid
PV -T collector system over separate systems of PV and solar collector in term of system efficiency
and economics . Unfortunately , very little experimental data exists that demonstrates the
advantages of a combined system . Therefore , one of the objectives of this study conducted was an
experimental study of this system as an auxiliary energy source for a residential building .
Night sky radiation has also been studied as a cooling strategy . However , no attempt so far
could be found to integrate it to a hybrid PV -T collector system . The night sky radiation strategy
could be operated with the hybrid PV /T collector system by using existing resources that are
already present in the solar system . The integration of the night sky radiation into the hybrid PV -T
collector system should yield more productivity of the system than the operation of the Hybrid PVT
system alone .
The research methods used in this work included instrumentation of a case -study house in
Thailand , an experimental PV -T collector system , and a calibrated building thermal simulation . A
typical contemporary Thai residential building was selected as a case -study house . Its energy use
and local weather data were measured and analyzed . Published energy use of Thai residential
buildings was also analyzed as well to determine average energy consumption . A calibrated
computer model of the case -study building was constructed using the DOE -2 program . A field
experiment of the thermal PV system was constructed to test its ability to simultaneously produce
electricity and hot water in the daytime , and shed heat at night as a cooling strategy (i .e . , night sky
radiation ) . The resultant electricity and hot water produced by the hybrid PV -T collector system
helped to reduce the use of non -renewable energy . The cooling produced by the night sky radiation
also has to potential to reduce the cooling load . The evaluation of the case -study house and results
of the field experiment helped to quantify the potential reduction of energy use in Thai residential
buildings .
This research provided the following benefits : 1 ) experimental results of a hybrid PV -T
solar collector system that demonstrates its performance compared to typical system of separate
photovoltaic and solar collector , 2 ) results of night sky radiation experiments using a photovoltaic
panel as a radiator to demonstrate the performance of this new space cooling strategy , and 3 ) useful
data from the case -study house simulation results and guidelines to assist others in transferring the
results to other projects . |