Ministry of National Education

Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest

Faculty of Building Services

Department of Thermotechnics and Thermal Equipments

Contributions for the use of solar energy with

unconventional thermal systems in the building sector

Scientifical Coordinator: PhD Student:

Prof. dr. ing. Florin Iordache ing. Radu Mihai-Lucian

- BUCHAREST 2014 -
Table of contents

1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 3

2 Modelling of the dinamic thermo-hydraulic processes ........................................... 4

2.1 The computation of the main energy parameters ................................................. 4

2.2 Thermal efficiencies.............................................................................................. 4

2.3 Quantities of energy ............................................................................................. 5

2.4 Energy coverage .................................................................................................. 5

3 Comparative case studies .......................................................................................... 6

3.1 Experimental validation of the mathematical models ............................................ 6

3.2 Comparative case study of energy analysis for a few solar

installations frequently used in Romania .............................................................. 9

3.3 Comparative case study of the economical performance between

some solutions of solar installations used in Romania ....................................... 13

4 Fast procedure of energy audit of solar installations for preparing

domestic hot water ................................................................................................... 17

5 The energy and environmental analysis for the whole life of solar
installations ............................................................................................................... 19

5.1 The specific analysis for the romanian climate ................................................... 19

6 Personal contributions, possibilities of further research and

conclusions ............................................................................................................... 21

Bibliography: ................................................................................................................... 23

2
 1 Introduction

In present the most part of energy is obtained from burning fosile fuel, a
process that generates 80% procent from the polluting emissions of gases in the
atmosphere, leading to the destruction of the environment. From these gases,
carbon dioxide, freons and nitrogen oxides are the main cause of the greenhouse
effect intensification in the last decades.

The residential sector is the main consumer of energy, followed by the

industrial sector and the tertiar one. That’s why the most important strategies and
policies that have as goal reducing energy consumption considers mainly these
three sectors. Therefore the reduction of fuel consumption in the housing sector
represents at the moment an extremely important goal in Romania and in the world.
Now we try to achieve these goal mainly by thermal rehabilitation of buildings and by
increasing the efficiency of building services, but in order to further reduce the fosile
fuels consumption we need to use energy from renewable sources through
unconventional systems of producing, transport and delivery of energy to the final
consummer. Therefore this research project meets the main objective of the national
strategy in the energy sector, which consists in satisfying the energy needs at a low
price, environmentally friendly and ensuring a civilized way of living, respecting the
principle of durable development.

Because at the european level the Directive 2002/91/CEE referring the energy
performance of buildings was adopted in 2002, it is also necessary to reanalyse the
national norms reffering to EPB and to use the same computation’s hypothesis,
terminology and delivering of results in order to obtain outputs that are easy to use
by everyone from EU.

Therefore it results the necessity to really adopt the european standards and
to complete the actual norms with armonized technical documents in order to create
the basis of the high scale use of installations based on renewable energy.

Now in Romania there are a lot of firms that assure consultation, planning and
execution in this field, but even if the equipments are mainly realised the
implementation of these equipments in the residential and tertiary buildings was not
realised excepting some particular cases given the technical and economical
difficulties. A big contribution in implementing these installations on a large scale
3
could have been achieved by the governamental programm „Green House”, whisch
statuated a subvention of up to 90% from the costs of buying and installing of the
installations based on energy from renewable sources. Now this programm was
implemented in another way, not so generous.

2 Modelling of the dinamic thermo-hydraulic processes

Solar energy represents a possible source of energy for a category of

consummers, mainly for preparing domestic hot water, but also for heating swimming
pools and to help the heating of buildings.

The mathematical model used allows the computation of energy and

economical parameters of a solar collector, but also of a solar installation with
storage tank with/without heat exchanger. The mathematical model is iterative,
allowing a precise, hourly computation of these parameters.

2.1 The computation of the main energy parameters

The main indicator which reflects the performance of a solar collector is its
efficiency. The efficiency is defined as the ratio between the collected energy and the
incident energy [1],[3]:
∗∗∗(
 )

= (2-1)

2.2 Thermal efficiencies

The qualitative thermal efficiency is defined as the value of the thermal

collected power and the maximum thermal power that can be collected by the
thermal agent flow [1],[3]:

∗∗∗
  

 = ∗∗∗(
 ) = 
 (2-2)
   

4
2.3 Quantities of energy

2.3.1 Delivered energy

The quantity of the delivered energy can be computed with the following
relation [1],[3]:

 = ∑ , (2-3)

, =  ∗  ∗ ∗ (! − #$% ) (2-2)

2.3.2 Stored energy

The stored energy in the tank on a day is computed with the following relation
[1],[3]:

 = & ∗  ∗ ∗ !'.) − !.)  (2-5)

2.3.3 Collected energy

The collected energy on a day is computed with the following relation [1],[3]:

Q+,- = Q./012- + Q2+ (2-6)

2.3.4 Consumed energy

The consumed energy on a day is computed with the following relation [1],[3]:

 =  ∗  ∗ ∗ (!$4 − !$% ) (2-7)

2.3.5 Incident energy

The incident energy on a day is computed with the following relation [1],[3]:

56 = ∑ 7 ∗ 89 (2-8)

2.4 Energy coverage

The energy coverage degree of a solar energy is computed with the following
relation [1],[3]:

5
 <=>?
; = ∗ 100 (2-9)
<=@AB

3 Comparative case studies

3.1 Experimental validation of the mathematical models

The case study consists in comparing the energy performance results of a

solar collector computed by implementing the mathematical model with the
experimental results obtained on the experimental facility realised at INCERC
Bucharest.

3.1.1 The description of the experimental facility

The experimental facility used to determine the characteristics of the solar

collectors allows the test under real natural conditions to verify the durability, fiability,
security needs, but also the determination of the energy performances, in steady-
state regime. The experimental facility was realised under the framework of a
national research project.

The functional schema of the experimental facility is presented in the figure 3-

1.

6
 Figura 3-1 Schema of the experimental facility

The implementation was made for the solar collector and both systems and
the comparison with the experimental data and validation of model was done for the
solar collector and the system with heat storage tank without heat exchanger.

The implementation of the mathematical model was made with the aid of
an Excel file.

3.1.2 Obtained results

The comparison at the level of solar collector

The comparison with the experimental results was realised with the exit
temperature from the collector. The analysis is done considering a time step of 1
minute. The computed values differ fromthe experimental ones by maximum 5%,
errors that can come also from measurement uncertainty.

7
 10
9
8
7

Var. temp. (oC)

6
5
deltat_m
4
deltat_calc
3
2
1
0
0 1 2 3 4 5
Point

Figure 3-2 Diagram of variation of water temperature inside the solar collector

Comparison at he level of the system formed by a solar collector and a storage tank
without heat exchanger

This comparison is done with the inside temperature of the storage tank. To
validate the mathematical model for this system was studied the rhytm of the heating
of the water, on a time period of 1 day.

35
33
31
29
temperature

27
25
model
23
exp
21
19
17
15
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Hour

Figure 3-3 Diagram of the variation of water temperature inside the storage tank

8
 The case study shows the small differencies between the experimentally
measured values and the results obtained from the mathematical model. The errors
are within 10%.

3.2 Comparative case study of energy analysis for a few solar

installations frequently used in Romania

The results obtained from the computational instrument are graphically

presented, comparisonwise. Initially are presented the graphs of the temperature
inside the water storage tank for the 4 installations configurations and the energy
quantities, comparative between the 4 installations.

60

50
january
february
40 march
april

30 may
Temperature (oC)

june
july
20
august
september
10 october
november
december
0
0-1
1-2
2-3
3-4
4-5
5-6
6-7
7-8
8-9
9-10
10-11
11-12
12-13
13-14
14-15
15-16
16-17
17-18
18-19
19-20
20-21
21-22
22-23
23-24

Ora

Figure 3-4 Variation of temperature inside the tank for the flat solar collectors, with heat
exchanger

9
 70

60 january
february
50
march
Temperature (oC)

april
40
may
30 june
july
20 august
september
10
october
november
0
0-1
1-2
2-3
3-4
4-5
5-6
6-7
7-8
8-9
9-10
10-11
11-12
12-13
13-14
14-15
15-16
16-17
17-18
18-19
19-20
20-21
21-22
22-23
23-24
december

Ora

Figure 3-5 Variation of temperature inside the water tank for the flat solar collectors, without
heat exchanger

70

60 january
february
50
march
Temperature (oC)

april
40
may
30 june
july
20 august
september
10
october
0 november
0-1
1-2
2-3
3-4
4-5
5-6
6-7
7-8
8-9
9-10
10-11
11-12
12-13
13-14
14-15
15-16
16-17
17-18
18-19
19-20
20-21
21-22
22-23
23-24

december

Ora

Figure 3-6 Variation of temperature inside the water tank for the vacuum tubes solar collectors,
with heat exchanger

10
 70

60
january

50 february
march
Temperature (oc)

40 april
may

30 june
july
august
20
september
october
10
november
december
0
0-1
1-2
2-3
3-4
4-5
5-6
6-7
7-8
8-9
9-10
10-11
11-12
12-13
13-14
14-15
15-16
16-17
17-18
18-19
19-20
20-21
21-22
22-23
23-24
Ora

Figure 3-7 Variation of temperature inside the water tank for the vacuum tubes solar collectors,
without heat exchanger

Collected energy
12

10
Collected energy (kWh/day)

8
Qcaptat_plan_var.1
6 Qcaptat_tv_var.1

4 Qcaptat_plan_var.2
Qcaptat_tv_var.2
2

Figure 3-8 Quantity of collected energy

11
 Delivered energy
9
8
7
Delivered energy(kWh/day)

6
Qlivrat_plan_var.1
5
4 Qlivrat_tv_var.1

3 Qlivrat_plan_var.2
2 Qlivrat_tv_var.2
1
0

Figure 3-9 Quantity of delivered energy

Eficiency
100

90

80

70
Efficiency(%)

60 Rand_plan_var.1

50 Rand_tv_var.1
Rand_plan_var.2
40
Rand_tv_var.2
30

20

10

Figure 3-10 Efficiency

12
 120
Degree of coverage
100
Degreee of coverage (%)

80 Grd.acop._plan_var.1
60 Grd.acop._tv_var.1
Grd.acop._plan_var.2
40
Grd.acop._tv_var.2
20

Figure 3-11 Degree of coverage of the hot water consumption

The annual degree of coverage is 55.94% for the installation with flat
collectors with heat exchanger, 61,73% for the installation with flat collectors without
heat exchanger, 73,79% for the installation with vacuum tubes with heat exchanger,
75.57% for the installation with vacuum tubes without heat exchanger. Therefore
these values demonstrate that a solar installation with medium performances
manages to cover a big amount of the required energy used to prepare domestic hot
water.

3.3 Comparative case study of the economical performance between

some solutions of solar installations used in Romania

3.3.1 Results of the economical analysis

The economical analysis assumes 2 scenaries namely:

- variant 1 (V1), in which the solar installation is not implemented. In this case
the investor doesn’t have any investment costs, but he will have to cover a
higher annual cost for preparing domestic hot water;

- variant 2 (V2), ), in which the solar installation is implemented. In this case the
investor will have investment costs, but than he will have to pay less annual
cost for preparing domestic hot water. The maintenance costs are not
included.

13
 Different comparative graphs were realised in order to emphasize the
differnces between the economical parameters.

Payback time with/without

subvention
14,00

12,00

10,00
No. years

8,00

6,00

4,00

2,00

0,00
flat with h.e. flat without h.e. vacuum with h.e. vacuum without
h.e.

Figure 3-12 Payback time for the 4 solar installations, with/without subvention

Cost of saved kWh with/without

subvention
0,08
0,07
Cost kWh (euro)

0,06
0,05
0,04
0,03
0,02
0,01
0,00
flat with h.e. flat without h.e. vacuum with h.e. vacuum without
h.e.

Figure 3-13 The cost of one saved kWh for the 4 solar installations, with/without subvention

14
 Realised savings with/wihout
subvention
3000
2500
2000
euro

1500
1000
500
0
flat with h.e. flat without h.e. vacuum with h.e. vacuum without
h.e.

Figure 3-14 Realised savings for the 4 solar installations, with/without subvention

Influence of climate on economical parameters

For the study of the influence of the climate upon the economical parameters
we did a comparative analysis between different locations, the economical
performance being studied for 4 more cities, namely: Cluj-Napoca, Iași, Sibiu,
Timișoara. The analysed economical parameters were the payback time, the cost of
one saved kWh and the realised saving on the whole life period of an installation.
The results are shown in the following graphs, comparatively between flat and
vacuum collectors.

Payback time
14,00
13,50
Payback time (years)

13,00
12,50
12,00
11,50
11,00
10,50
10,00
București Cluj-Napoca Iași Sibiu Timișoara
locality

Figure 3-15 Payback time for different localities

15
 Cost of saved kWh
0,085

Cost of saved kWh (euro/kWh) 0,080

0,075
0,070
0,065
0,060
0,055
0,050
București Cluj-Napoca Iași Sibiu Timișoara
locality

Figure 3-16 Costul of one saved kWh for different localities

Realised savings
1000
Realised savings (euro)

900

800

700

600

500

400
București Cluj-Napoca Iași Sibiu Timișoara
locality

Figure 3-17 Realised savings for different localities

Comparative study financial savings/costs of installations

In this study we computed the ratio between the financial savings realised and
the costs of installations. The computations were made for the situation with heat
exchanger, for both types of solar collectors in different locations. The results are
shown in the next graph.

16
 Ratio savings - cost
0,70

Ratio savings/cost 0,60

0,50
0,40
0,30
0,20
0,10
0,00
București Cluj-Napoca Iași Sibiu Timișoara
locality

Figura 3-18 Ratio between savings and cost for the 2 types of solar collectors, for different
locations

4 Fast procedure of energy audit of solar installations for

preparing domestic hot water

The goal of this simplified procedure is to realised a fast energy audit of

existent installtions, by graphically determining the energy and economical
parameters.

The graphs are done separately for different locations and the two types of
analysed solar collectors (flat solar collectors and vacuum collectors). The solar
installation is with heat exchanger.

The procedure works as following:

- with the specific collector surface we graphically read the collected energy
and the degree of coverage Q_capt_an’ și Grd_ac_an’;
- In the case of a number of 4 persons and a global energy losses coefficient of
3,5 W/(m2*K) the quantity of collected energy Q_capt_an=Q_capt_an’ and the
degree of coverage Grd_ac_an=Grd_ac_an’;
- if the number of persons is different we apply a correction to Q_capt_an’,
obtaining Q_capt_an’’:

17
- if k is equal to 3,5 W/(m2*K) then Q_capt_an=Q_capt_an’’ and the degree of
coverage Grd_ac_an=Grd_ac_an’’;
- if the k value is different to 3,5 W/(m2*K) then the collected energy
Q_capt_an, is obtained correcting the value of Q_capt_an’’.
- if the k value is different to 3,5 W/(m2*K) then the degree of coverage is
obtained correcting the value of Grd_ac_an’.

The procedure for the economical parameters uses the same principles.

18
 5 The energy and environmental analysis for the whole life of
solar installations

The renewable energy sources are mainly presented as „clean sources”,

ignoring the energy consumption and the impact on the environment of the
production process.

A group of reaserchers from the Departament of Energy Research and

Environment (DREAM) from the Palermo University have realised a study which
analyse the energy performance of a solar collector on the whole life cycle. During
the study the date reffering the production, installing and maintenance were collected
directly from a big italian producer. The data referring to raw materials and energy
sources were considered as average values for Italy or for other european countries
[5],[14],[15].

5.1 The specific analysis for the romanian climate

During the pHd work the study result were customized for the romanian
climate, resulting the following graphs:

Collected energy[kWh]
250
Collected energy (kWh)

200

150

100

50

month

Figure 5-1 Mounthly collected energy by a solar collector

19
 CO2 savings [kg]
50
45
CO2 saved (kg) 40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

month

Figure 5-2 Mounthly collected energy by a solar collector

The collected solar energy is estimated at 1367 kWh / year. The payback
period is in this case aproximately 2,3 years. This value demonstrate the viability of
this technology, taking into account that the life cycle of a solar installation is about
15-20 years. The payback period for the consummed CO2 is about 2 years. [30]

20
 6 Personal contributions, possibilities of further research and
conclusions

The work presents the energy and economical analysis for different types of
installations and for different locations in Romania and also for 2 types of
unconventional installations of using energy from renewable sources.

The work comprises for the beginning a presentation of 2 unconventional

systems that use solar energy in buildings, namely solar space and the combined
system endothermic facade – heat pump. Both systems were tested during research
projects at INCD URBAN-INCERC, proving their functionality.

The experimental verification of the mathematical models was realised with the
aid of the experimental facility executed inside INCD URBAN-INCERC.

The experimental facility to determine the characteristics of the solar collectors

allows their proofing under natural climate to verify the durability, fiability, security
needs, but also the determination of the energy performances, in steady-state and daily
regime. The stand allows proofing for more days under natural climate conditions in
conditions of constant entry temperature, natural solar radiation and wind, taking into
account the effects that influence the collector performance on the whole day, like the
dependance on the incidence angle, the windspeed, diffuse solar radiation, radiation
towards sky and thermal capacity. The schema of the experimental facility is presented
in the paper.

After the proof of the mathematical model, this was used to simulate the
functioning of an installation composed of a solar collector and a storage tank, for the
whole year.

The work presents in detail the energy behaviour of the analysed solar
installations and thir economical analysis.

The energy analysis comprises also a life cycle analysis, which shows very good
results for implementing solar installtions in Romania. Completing the energy analysis a
building with/without a solar installations was certified.

21
 Economically, even if the implementation of solar energy installations for
preparing domestic hot water during the construction works of new buildings and
rehabilitation of the existent ones can appear as inefficient from the economical point of
view (the payback period is close to life period), we have to take into account the fact
that in future the energy price can go up at a higher rate, with its liberalisation. Also
implementation of this solutions leads to the increase of energy independence of the
building.

Because the economical results are not so encouraging for investors, the state
must intervene with a consistent subvention for the ones that want to implement such a
system, because they lead to better life quality by reducing the negative impact on the
environment resulted from burning fossile fuels and these technologies increase the
national energy independance.

At the end of the economical analysis we developed a graphical simplified

procedure of determining the energy and economical parameters for solar installations
useful for the investors in this systems. The graphs should be updated on a yearly
basis.

The personal contributions are represented by the validation of the mathematical

model and then by the simulations of energy and economical functioning of a solar
installations, materialized in the multitude of comparisons between different solutions.
Another important personal contribution is the realisation of a graphical procedure to
determine the main energy and economical parameters, procedure that has as goal to
ease the activity of the ones implicated in this field. In the future it is posible ti further
develop this procedure within a methodology to determine these parameters.

Within the life cycle analysis the personal contribution is represented by the
particularisation of the analysis to the romanian climate conditions.

22
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25