Speaker
Description
Strong demand for the usage of renewable energy in all industrial sectors has brought attention to fuel-free energy such as solar energy. Hydro and wind power occupy more than two third of the renewable electricity market, but solar power has the highest growth rate among all sustainable energy.
Although Nordic and Baltic countries consume more than half of the energy produced by renewable sources for heating and cooling. Solar power generation is considered inefficient in the far northern hemisphere due to its low photovoltaic power potential.
Nevertheless, solar heating systems integrated into the district heating system can work effectively, especially in summer. Thanks to the versatile system configuration with sophisticated control technology such as model predictive control, ANN, etc., the solar heating model can provide significant flexibility to the thermal network.
The model is based on a laboratory-scale solar energy system consisting of 4 different outdoor solar panels and collectors - PV, PVT, flat panel, and parabolic trough collector. Each solar thermal collector is connected to a heat pump which is powered by the electricity produced from the PV panels. A thermal storage unit and a heat exchanger are installed, and both the thermal system and the electrical system are connected to the thermal network and the electric power grid of the building respectively.
The aim of the study is to evaluate the concept model of a solar thermal energy system with multiple types of solar energy units and the feasibility of the solar energy system in district heating. The study model shows that the solar heating system can provide almost a quarter of the heating demand of the building in summer.
References
[1] Md. Abdullah-Al-Mahbub, A. R. Md. T. Islam, H. Almohamad, A. A. Al Dughairi, M. Al-Mutiry, and H. G. Abdo, ‘Different Forms of Solar Energy Progress: The Fast-Growing Eco-Friendly Energy Source in Bangladesh for a Sustainable Future’, Energies, vol. 15, no. 18, p. 6790, Sep. 2022, doi: 10.3390/en15186790.
[2] ‘Share_of_energy_from_renewable_sources,2021(%of_gross_final_energy_consumption).png (1576×1146)’, Eurostat - Renewable energy statistics. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/b/b1/Share_of_energy_from_renewable_sources%2C_2021%28%25_of_gross_final_energy_consumption%29.png (accessed Apr. 01, 2023).
[3] I. Jamil, H. Lucheng, S. Habib, M. Aurangzeb, E. M. Ahmed, and R. Jamil, ‘Performance evaluation of solar power plants for excess energy based on energy production’, Energy Reports, vol. 9, pp. 1501–1534, Dec. 2023, doi: 10.1016/j.egyr.2022.12.081.
[4] S. S. Martin, A. Chebak, and N. Barka, ‘Development of renewable energy laboratory based on integration of wind, solar and biodiesel energies through a virtual and physical environment’, in 2015 3rd International Renewable and Sustainable Energy Conference (IRSEC), Marrakech: IEEE, Dec. 2015, pp. 1–8. doi: 10.1109/IRSEC.2015.7455086.
[5] S. Drozek et al., ‘Design, Installation, and Performance Characterization of a Laboratory-Scale Solar Thermal System for Experiments in Solar Energy Utilization’, in Volume 5: Education and Globalization; General Topics, Houston, Texas, USA: American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Nov. 2012, pp. 241–245. doi: 10.1115/IMECE2012-86361.
[6] D. Zinsmeister et al., ‘A prosumer-based sector-coupled district heating and cooling laboratory architecture’, Smart Energy, vol. 9, p. 100095, Feb. 2023, doi: 10.1016/j.segy.2023.100095.
[7] G. Wheatley and R. I. Rubel, ‘Design improvement of a laboratory prototype for efficiency evaluation of solar thermal water heating system using phase change material (PCMs)’, Results in Engineering, vol. 12, p. 100301, Dec. 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.rineng.2021.100301.
| Keywords | solar energy, district heating, heat pump, thermal network, photovoltaic, solar collector |
|---|
