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Evaluation of household electricity consumption in multi-apartment buildings for optimization of rooftop PV systems
Electricity generation from photovoltaic (PV) in Latvia is currently below the necessary capacity required to contribute to achieving climate neutrality by 2050. However, photovoltaic offer households and companies the opportunity to align their electricity consumption with environmental goals while supporting the European Green Deal objectives. In recent years, there was a growing interest in the installation of photovoltaic microgenerators in Latvia. By June 2023, the total number of households microgenerators connected to the grid has reached 15,000, boasting a collective production capacity exceeding 120 MW. This significant increase is in stark contrast to the situation 5 years ago when Latvia had a mere 3 MW of photovoltaic capacity. Several factors contributed to this growth, including a surge in electricity prices, at times surging more than tenfold, and the implementation of renewable energy (RE) use support measures to facilitate the acquisition of RE systems. Furthermore, 2023 witnessed numerous amendments to Latvia’s energy policy documents and the introduction of the concept of citizen energy communities (CEC), indicating a growing emphasis on harnessing solar energy potential in the country. However, it remains crucial to base these endeavors on accurate, economically viable information regarding solar technologies, their costs and their anticipated long-term outcomes. This manuscript aims to provide an overview of the grid-connected potential of rooftop photovoltaic systems within a Latvian urban setting. Through extensive research, a model has been developed, employing a thoroughly tested simulation program for evaluating the generation capacity of photovoltaic systems. This model considers real electricity consumption data, the existing infrastructure and economic factors. The findings affirm the technical and economic viability of urban rooftop photovoltaic systems within the Latvian context. It has been established that the implementation of such citizen energy communities energy systems holds significant potential. These systems have the potential to be a promising solution for future electricity generation, addressing some of the demands while relieving strain on external power grids. However, the full potential can only be realized with improved infrastructure, and the system’s profitability is heavily contingent on market dynamics and political conditions. This study may also be applicable to other photovoltaic systems facing similar climate conditions.
This paper is dedicated to research of the impact of the limited heat source capacity on indoor temperature and energy consumption in serial nZEB residential buildings. This is an innovative aspect as it explores the potential design simplification for different locations, allowing for cost optimization and quicker construction timelines. The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of limited heat source capacity by utilizing thermal mass and optimizing the ventilation operation. Numerical results demonstrate that incorporating thermal mass increases heating energy consumption by up to 1%. The study addresses the impact of limited heating capacity on indoor temperatures and the need to manage ventilation’s impact during peak temperatures using simulation software IDA ICE. The study reveals that a limited heating capacity reduces energy consumption up to 2.6%, but may result in lower indoor temperatures. By optimizing ventilation strategies, energy consumption can be reduced from 2.4% to 4.4% compared to the suboptimal solution, and from 2.8% to 6.5% compared to the initial case. Parametric analysis reveals optimal ventilation operation change-over point at an outdoor temperature of −17 °C during winter. The research provides practical recommendations for adjusting heating schedules, selecting appropriate heating capacities and implementing optimal ventilation strategies.
This Guidebook has been prepared by a REHVA Task Force that includes members from nine European countries, including Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Turkey. The modernisation of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems can play a very important role during the deep renovation of existing buildings to achieve the calculated energy savings by properly operating existing installations. Therefore, the Guidebook aims to provide strategies and recommendations to support practising profes-sionals in the field of energy renovation for existing buildings, with a focus on HVAC sys-tems. The role of the building envelope is essential in initial efforts to reduce energy demand. Therefore, this topic is also covered within this Guidebook—albeit not in detail.
The Guidebook presents the fundamentals for specific energy efficiency and other renova-tion measures in existing buildings for which HVAC systems play an important role. Emphasis is placed on market-ready and technically mature solutions that have been proven in practice to increase building renovation rates and facilitate the energy renovation process of existing buildings. The Guidebook presents results from field studies with quantified energy savings that are complemented with payback time estimates to document the overall benefits resulting from different renovation measures that can be implemented by HVAC professionals and practitioners.
Focusing only on the energy renovation of the building envelope – instead of the building as a whole – will often limit potential energy savings and may significantly increase the payback time. Emphasis should also be placed on the renovation of HVAC systems and the energy education of building occupants to fully exploit the anticipated benefits of various implemented technologies. Additionally, the adaptation of HVAC systems to various build-ing energy demands will further improve indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and overall occupant satisfaction.
The Guidebook presents the best available techniques and solutions that can be used as part of the energy modernisation process for HVAC systems, especially in residential buildings. They are usually characterised with a life cycle analysis to have a low carbon footprint, low payback time and short implementation time whilst minimising the disruption of building occupants and offering a high potential for repeatability to other buildings and widespread use. The information contained in this Guidebook should inspire and motivate professionals to achieve better project results, high-performance buildings and satisfied building owners and occupants.
The European Unions' ambition for the construction sector is to be carbon neutral by 2030 for new construction. Since 2021, all new buildings in the EU should have been constructed as nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEB). However, Eastern European countries struggle to implement the 2018 Energy Performance of Building Directive recast requirements. Next to the economic challenges, equally essential factors hinder renovating the existing residential building stock and adding newly constructed high-performance buildings sourced primarily from renewable energy sources. Therefore, this study provides a cross-study to identify the barriers to nZEB implementation in ten Eastern European countries, including Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. The study was conducted between 2019 and 2021 and provides an overview of prospects for nZEB in Eastern Europe. The study examines the challenges of nZEB plans faced in those countries and provides constructive recommendations. The regulations and definitions regarding nZEB energy performance, cooling and heating energy demand, thermal comfort, onsite renewables, and construction quality were analyzed. Results show that most Eastern European countries are unprepared to comply with the EPBD guidelines and cost-optimality approach. The paper ranks each country and recommends specific measures to refine the nZEB definitions. The paper provides a thorough comparative assessment and benchmarking of select EU geography that can help shift the identified gaps into opportunities for the future development of climate-neutral high-performance buildings.
Countries with limited natural resources and high energy prices, such as Jordan, face significant challenges concerning energy consumption and energy efficiency, particularly in the context of climate change. Residential buildings are the most energy-consuming sector in Jordan. Photovoltaic (PV) systems on the rooftops of residential buildings can solve the problem of increasing electricity demands and address the need for more sustainable energy systems. This study calculated the potential electricity production from PV systems installed on the available rooftops of residential buildings and compared this production with current and future electricity consumption for residential households. A simulation tool using PV*SOL 2021 was used to estimate electricity production and a comparative method was used to compare electricity production and consumption. The results indicated that electricity production from PV systems installed on single houses and villas can cover, depending on the tilt angle and location of the properties, three to eight times their estimated future and current electricity use. PV installation on apartment buildings can cover 0.65 to 1.3 times their future and current electricity use. The surplus electricity produced can be used to mitigate urban energy demands and achieve energy sustainability.
Community-based energy systems are gaining traction among policymakers and practitioners as promising models for implementing a low-carbon energy transition. As a result, there has been a proliferation of concepts in the scientific literature, such as community energy, energy communities, community solar, and community wind. However, what scholars mean by "community" in these contexts is often unclear and inconsistent. This paper provides further conceptual clarity in the field by analyzing how the term of community is conceptualized in the scholarly literature on energy systems, through a systematic review of 405 articles. We combine an author keyword network analysis of this corpus with an in-depth analysis of 183 definitions extracted from these articles and systematically coded across three dimensions: meanings, activities and objectives of communities. Our findings show that the meanings attached to the notion of community and the alleged objectives pursued by communities vary substantially across concepts and over time. In particular, there has been a shift away from a notion of community understood as a process that emphasizes participatory aspects toward a notion of community primarily referring to a place. Furthermore, there is a growing focus on communities' economic objectives rather than their social or political goals. These findings suggest a weakening of scholars' attention to "transformative" notions of community emphasizing collective and grassroots processes of participation in energy transitions, to the benefit of "instrumental" notions. This trend runs the risk of placing the sole emphasis on the market value of communities, thereby diluting their distinctiveness from more commercial actors.
The European Union sets targets for the extensive use of renewable energy. Meanwhile, the energy production network is changing and transferring from the classic “producer to consumer” scheme to new operation models, where a small consumer with local renewable energy systems becomes a producer–prosumer, an active energy consumer who is also an energy producer. This study evaluated a potential of Latvian households’ participation in the energy market as prosumers. The analysis was based on an informal prospective extrapolation data evaluation method, based on real historical data from the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, annual reports of distribution and transmission system operators, assessments, and the conclusions of relevant experts. In addition, the real performance of a photovoltaic (PV) system was evaluated to get information on the whole year’s energy balance, and to compare it with seasonal electricity price fluctuation. The Latvian electricity transmission system is able to accept about 800 MW of additional new renewable energy source (RES) capacity, so there is a great potential for prosumers. The biggest obstacle for a household’s involvement in the energy market is the lack of support mechanisms and relatively high cost of RES technologies. The results show that with the current dynamics of new microgenerator connections, Latvia will achieve the set goals regarding the involvement of prosumers in the achievement of RES goals only in the next century. In order to attract the public to energy production, the concept of energy community needs to be defined in Latvian legislation, a balanced peer trading mechanism needs to be developed for various RES self-consumption groups willing to sell surplus electricity, and tax policy conditions need to be reviewed for electricity transactions outside the NET (payment system), in order to fully ensure the rights of prosumers.
Lebanon suffers from daily electricity shortages. The country has paid much attention to renewable energy sources, particularly solar, to gradually replace conventional energy. Installing a photovoltaic (PV) system becomes increasingly attractive for residential consumers due to the rising electricity tariff rates while it reduces the dependency on domestic power generators. No known study has dealt with the investigation of potential grid-connected rooftop PV systems with various sun-tracking modes and PV technologies in Nahr El-Bared, Lebanon. Consequently, the main objective of the current paper is to investigate the feasibility of a 5kW grid-connected PV system of various technologies (mono-crystalline silicon and poly-crystalline silicon) and sun-tracking modes including fixed tilt and 2-axis systems for rooftop households in Lebanon. The Nahr El-Bared camp was the case study was of the paper. RETScreen Expert software was used to evaluate the techno-economic performance of the proposed systems. The results show that the annual electrical energy from a fixed 5kW PV panel tilted at an optimal angle ranged from 8564.47kWh to 8776.81kWh, while the annual electrical energy from the PV tracking system was within the range of 11511.67-12100.92kWh. This amount of energy output would contribute significantly to reduce the energy shortage in the country. A typical household was selected to establish a load profile and load supply during both grid availability and outage periods. The highest energy consumption that can be covered by the PV systems was recorded during the spring and summer seasons. Also, the average energy production cost ranged from 0.0239 to 0.0243$/kWh for all the proposed systems. It was concluded that a 5kW grid-connected rooftop PV system could be economically justifiable. Finally, this study tried to increase the awareness about utilizing PV sun-tracking systems and the feasibility of small-scale grid-connected rooftop PV systems in the selected regions. The results of this research can help investors in the energy and building sectors.
Community energy refers to a wide range of collective energy actions that involve citizens’ participation in the energy system. The Clean Energy Package recognises certain categories of community energy initiatives as ‘energy communities’ in European legislation. Energy communities can be understood as a way to ‘organise’ collective energy actions around open, democratic participation and governance and the provision of benefits for the members or the local community. This report focuses on 24 community energy schemes that could potentially be considered types of energy communities. The case studies analysed show that community energy projects are found in diverse forms across Europe. The most widespread involve energy generation. Examples include school buildings or farm roofs equipped with solar panels, or windmills installed by residents in a village. Further, small biomass installations, heat pumps, solar thermal and district heating networks are popular technologies for some community groups. While their overall proportion as investors in renewables may remain small, citizens and communities have a huge potential to invest in renewables. An increasing number of projects is also getting involved in energy efficiency and energy services that return profits to the community.
Good design and sizing of photovoltaic (PV) systems is very important in order to effectively harvest energy and minimize the investment cost. The optimum tilt and azimuth angles at which a PV system should be installed are often debated. This paper evaluates the tradeoff between annual energy generation and payback period reduction through the analysis of a small house with pitched roof integrated PVs in both East and West sides. Validated irradiance
and PV models were used for the analysis. The optimum tilt and azimuth angles are found to be 35° and 10° respectively. Finally, a contour map plot illustrating all possible tilt and orientation angles, corresponding to a payback period less than 20 years, is provided. The results are valid for different building typologies and locations with similar climate conditions as Prague.
Residential buildings in Latvia are one of the essential heat consumers during the heating season. The majority of Latvian as well as European residential buildings were constructed within the period from 1965 to 1990. Introduction presents brief overview of current situation in Latvian and EU countries. This chapter provides overview of real energy consumption and definition of buildings technical conditions. Materials and methods are based on evaluation of standardized energy consumption in two kindergartens and multi apartment buildings including also dynamic energy simulation. Chapter on thermal performance of building envelope provides an extensive comparison of heat transfer coefficients in non-renovated buildings as well as comparison with normative values. Section on energy consumption of existing multi apartment buildings presents review of buildings real energy consumption before and after renovation. In addition this chapter evaluated indoor air quality. This study was done in order to define necessary reconstruction goals to reach European Regional Development Fund project "A New Concept for Sustainable and Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings" Nr. 1.1.1.1/16/A/007 main targets.
Solar power generation in Sweden is far from required capacity to help with transition towards 100% renewables in the power sector by 2040. Decentralized PV system attracts attentions given the conflicts of future increasing demands and land scarcity in the urban areas. However, it is not easy to implement it due to challenges on local conditions and lack of references.
This paper aims to propose an overview of the potential of small-scale grid-connected PV systems in a Swedish context and offer an example for urban PV system planning in Sweden or high latitude areas. A model considering weather, space, infrastructures and economics is developed and implemented with a real case in the Swedish context.
The findings verify the technical and economic feasibility of urban decentralized rooftop PV systems in the Swedish context. It is found that this kind of system does have considerable power potential in the Swedish context without land requirements. This kind of PV system could be a promising option for future power generation which satisfies part of demands and reduces pressure on external grids. The full potential could be only achieved with improved infrastructures, and the profitability of the system relies heavily on market and political conditions. This study can be a refence for other high latitude areas.
Energy communities are at the heart of forming sustainable cities. Beside their important role in decarbonization, they can bring economic, and social benefits to the End-users. Based on the Clean Energy Package (CEP) definition in European Union, an energy community is categorized as: Citizen Energy Communities (CECs) and Renewable Energy Communities (RECs). In this regard, modeling an energy management system framework in a Smart Multi-Carrier Energy Network (SMCEN) associated with CECs and RECs is much of interest. In this paper, a two-stage risk-based optimization model is proposed to handle an energy management structure incorporating energy communities. To this purpose, Energy Community Managers (ECMs) of CECs and RECs concurrently solve the problem at the first stage and send the output data to the SMCEN operator. In the second stage, the SMCEN operator solves an optimization problem to maximize its profit considering the SMCEN's constraints. The uncertainties of energy demands as well as on-site generation are modeled by a scenario-based approach, while a risk-modeling technique is employed to handle the SMCEN risk attitudes in multi-carrier energy scheduling. The results verify that the risk attitude of the SMCEN operator is an influential factor to determine the profit of the SMCEN.
Despite the technical maturity and substantial potential cost reduction of BIPV technologies, there are still challenges to overcome for the expansion of BIPV applications and their wider adaptation at global level. Among these, the alignment of PV integration with particular climate and environmental conditions of the local solar architecture is crucial. This will facilitate the transition to sustainable buildings and the mitigation of climate change. In this context, this study proposes for the first time, a novel BIPV climatic design framework for PV buildings positioning and adaptation to local climate towards the minimization of energy expenditure and use of resources. With the review and analysis of a large numbers of BIPV studies globally for seventy parameters grouped in eight main categories of an open-access database, the global horizontal irradiation (GHI) value is selected as an additional index to the Köppen-Geiger classification scheme. The extension accounts for the urban suitability and vulnerability and prioritize the building integration of photovoltaics. Four zones of cold (low GHI), moderate (medium GHI), warm (high GHI) and hot (very high GHI) climatic regions are considered and applied for 127 cities globally. In this framework, the sequence of PV building component integration is proposed according to local climate of each zone and the energy performance of buildings is maximized towards their positive energy contributions and sharing in local, district and city grids. Barriers and limitations of the BIPV implementation at a larger scale are discussed and the emerging research needs are revealed.
As electricity consumption in residential buildings has increased, advanced metering infrastructures (AMIs) have been widely installed in residential buildings. AMIs measure and collect metering data of electricity (AMI data) consumed in each household. Companies, such as electricity suppliers and service and policy developers, have used AMI data to develop various services and policies. They rely on actual electricity consumption from AMI data to understand households' needs. However, the actual consumption may be different from household's perceived consumption. Household's perceived consumption could be affected by their respective characteristics, such as demographic and psycho-social characteristics. Accordingly, this research examines a difference between household's actual and perceived electricity consumption and determines household characteristics that affect the difference. For achieving this goal, this research uses AMI data (actual consumption) and survey data (perceived consumption) from 142 households in South Korea. Results confirm the existence of the difference and the influence of specific household characteristics on the difference between actual and perceived electricity consumptions. House and household sizes affect actual consumption, whereas behaviors that interact with electrical appliances affect perceived consumption. The findings would be useful for the companies in developing services and policies that satisfy household requirements.
This study focuses on the integration of small capacity prosumers in district heating networks. The challenge for installations with solar collectors lies in the fact that fluctuations in cloud cover and pressure drops in the network are unpredictable. Therefore, it is more difficult to ensure a stable feed-in temperature that meets the technical requirements of the district heating network.
For this, an experimental prototype with flat plate and vacuum thermal collectors was developed and the TRNSYS simulation model was created. The model has been validated using data from the test facility. Multiple simulations have been performed to analyse various options for improving the stability of the feed-in temperature.
An analysis of the change in the temperature of the heat carrier on sunny and cloudy days in three control modes was carried out. It showed that the temperature fluctuation depends both on weather conditions and "idling" and "rotating" time intervals of the three-way valve. Results of the study show that the cloud cover has a strong influence on the stability of the collector outlet temperature. Fluctuations in the feed-in temperature need to be compensated for by changing the flow rate and different strategies for operating the three-way valve, which become a challenge in real-life conditions with fluctuating differential pressure in the district heating network.
With the increasing adoption of solar photovoltaics (PVs) in the power grid, the grid authorities are faced with significant challenges in managing PV intermittency, variability and uncertainty. The inherent ramping behaviour of the PVs results in short-term PV power fluctuations which in-turn affects the grid voltage regulation. This has resulted in implementation of new grid codes to limit the ramp-rate (RR) behaviour of PVs allowing the grid resources to curb the power fluctuations. Energy storage system (ESS) is one such fast acting resource that helps in limiting and smoothing PV power fluctuations when coordinated by RR control algorithms. This paper proposes an ESS-based RR control strategy to smoothen and limit PV power fluctuations in the power grid. The proposed RR control strategy has been implemented for two types of smoothing namely, aggregated smoothing that considers the overall PV output, and individual node-level smoothing that considers the individual PV output. The technical feasibility of this RR control strategy to limit the PV power fluctuations is analysed using a standard IEEE test network with both centralized and distributed ESS placements at various PV penetration levels. The effectiveness of the proposed RR control strategy in reducing voltage fluctuations in the power network is also studied. Moreover, cost optimization is carried out with various PV penetration levels to ensure optimal ESS operation at the lowest possible cost while adhering to the optimization and network constraints. The paper further provides detailed techno-economic analysis for various case scenarios.
Proper energy storage system design is important for performance improvements in solar power shared building communities. Existing studies have developed various design methods for sizing the distributed batteries and shared batteries. For sizing the distributed batteries, most of the design methods are based on single building energy mismatch, but they neglect the potentials of energy sharing in reducing battery capacity, thereby easily causing battery oversizing problem. For sizing the shared batteries, the existing design methods are based on a community aggregated energy mismatch, which may avoid battery oversizing but cause another severe problem, i.e., excessive electricity losses in the sharing process caused by the long-distance power transmissions. Therefore, this study proposes a hierarchical design method of distributed batteries in solar power shared building communities, with the purpose of reducing the battery capacity and minimizing the energy loss in the sharing process. The developed design method first considers all the distributed batteries as a virtual ‘shared’ battery and searches its optimal capacity using genetic algorithm. Taking the optimized capacity as a constraint, the developed method then optimizes the capacities of the distributed batteries for minimizing the energy loss using non-linear programming. Case studies on a building community show that compared with an existing design method, the proposed design can significantly reduce the battery capacity and electricity loss in the sharing process, i.e. 36.6% capacity reduction and 55% electricity loss reduction. This study integrates the considerations of aggregated energy needs, local PV power sharing, advanced community control, and battery storage sharing, which will be useful to optimize three functions (energy efficiency, energy production and flexibility) in a positive energy district towards energy surplus and climate neutrality.
Photovoltaic technology has become a key strategy to achieve the European goal of renewable energy rate. But the photovoltaic market is not uniform in the European Union, with different support policies in each country. These policies, if are stable and suitable over a period, can influence investment decisions and ensure a profitability in the investment.
This paper studies the profitability of photovoltaic self-consumption installation in Spanish households with Spanish regulations. To develop this study, the electric consumption profile of houses was considered. The difference in profitability has been analyzed according to the number of members of the household.
Furthermore, the impact of the adoption of another type of self-consumption support policy has been analyzed (France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and Finland). For this, all incentives have been scaled up to the Spanish price. The result is that all these regulations present significantly better profitability than the Spanish, leading to it being considered that the investments have very positive economic parameters. For instance, the payback period in Spain for households of 1–4 members is 21, 17, 16, and 15 years respectively, while in the worst of the other analyzed countries these values are 13, 11, 10 and 10 years.
In the framework of the building sector de-carbonization, the case of a new nearly zero-energy district, located in the Milan urban area (Italy), is presented. In particular, the scope of the work is to demonstrate that the proposed energy concept, based on the combination of low-energy building design and high-efficiency technical systems, allows the reduction of the final energy uses. After the evaluation of the energy needs, a low-temperature and small-size wood biomass district thermal plant was designed to be integrated with groundwater heat pumps (GWHP) and solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, taking up the challenge to design an almost full-renewable urban district by means of a Multi-Energy System. The core is a biomass boiler coupled with a small combined heat and power (CHP) unit with a twin-screw steam expander (TSSE). The heat produced by the CHP satisfies a consistent fraction of space heating and domestic hot water (DHW) needs during the winter season. GWHPs coupled with PV satisfy remaining thermal needs in winter and the entire thermal needs in mid-season and in the summer period. The obtained outcomes prove the benefits of the combination of a wood biomass CHP with GWHPs and PV with a significant share of renewable energies.
The objective of this paper is to make a minutely comparison between 3 different DC microgrids by addressing their most outstanding advantages and disadvantages not only in technical terms, but also regarding other performance related aspects, such as a) measurement of the quality of the electrical supply of the facilities, b) reliability, and c) economic and environmental impact. Results show that in the best case, for all the microgrids, the accuracy of the measurements is around 99.45 %, with a weighted average of voltage applied to the load of 24.54 V. The building studied was reimagined into an autonomous and self-sustaining installation by using renewable electric power in direct current with a power distribution on 24 V. Additionally, the systems developed show a potential of greenhouse gas recovery close to 35.05 tCO2 per year, with a return of investment of 7 years for the renewable-based microgrid and 3 years return for the traditional microgrid. The novelty of this paper relies on the performance comparison of 3 different types of direct current microgrids, one grid-powered (A) based on traditional fuel generation, and two off-grid (B & C) based on photovoltaic energy generation, when feeding a building of considerable size and low operational flexibility.
Batteries of photovoltaic (PV) household-prosumers undergo many fast, partial charge/discharge cycles because of the short-term fluctuations of household load and PV profiles. This negatively affects battery lifetime and can increase project cost involving energy storage systems (ESSs). To address this problem, this research developed an innovative analytical technique that assesses the techno-economic impact of battery-aging mechanisms and their influence on the optimal sizing of a hybrid energy storage system (HESS) for prosumers so as to minimize the total energy supply cost. This technique, implemented in a dynamic model of the integrated system, designs battery degradation, supercapacitor (SC) behaviour, converter hardware implementation, and power management strategy (PMS). The results, as reflected in technical short and long-term assessments, showed a potential improvement in self-consumption and self-sufficiency ratios due to PV, battery, SC, and the extension of battery lifetime in various PV-ESS sizing scenarios. The optimal PV-battery configuration was then determined by a techno-economic assessment, as well as the most suitable HESS sizing, while preserving the previous ratios of optimal PV-battery configuration, though with a lower life-cycle cost. The optimal PV-battery configuration was found to depend on the long-term power fluctuations of input profiles, whereas short-term fluctuations determined the optimal HESS sizing.
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The present article's aim is to sum up the knowledge generated in the field of Community Energy (CE) as of today. The geographical focus lies on Germany, the UK and the USA while the thematic focus lies on the benefits provided for society by community energy and the barriers community energy projects face in their respective countries. Key features of this review are a compilation of definitions of Community Energy and a comparison of country-specific circumstances concerning Community Energy. The aim of this review is to help the scientific community to form a common understanding of the CE concept and to show the relationship between policy schemes and CE development.
In a net zero energy building, the energy needed to operate the building is met by renewable energy generated on site. Buildings require energy both in the form of heat and electricity, and hybrid photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) modules are therefore an interesting technology for building applications. This paper describes a comparative simulation study of solar thermal, photovoltaic (PV) and PV/T systems on a Norwegian residential building model, with the objective to reach a net zero energy balance. The results show that PV/T systems can reach a higher energy output than separate solar thermal and PV installations, but the building with state-of-the-art PV modules only gets closest to meeting the nZEB requirements.
This study presents a means to extend the functionality of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in assessing distributed photovoltaic (PV) potential in urban areas, via the new ArcGIS extension: PV Analyst. A methodology is proposed for coupling ArcGIS with TRNSYS that enables the PV Analyst extension to use the capabilities of 4 and 5-parameter PV array performance models and the irradiance components in TRNSYS for solar energy simulations in geospatial contexts. Because PV Analyst is embedded within the ArcMap environment, part of ArcGIS software package, the strong capabilities of ArcGIS and other ArcGIS extensions such as 3D Analyst, Spatial Analyst and Tracking Analyst can be fully utilized with PV Analyst’s functionalities. This paper describes the concept and details of the extension development, as well as its application to the Pollock Commons area at the Pennsylvania State University.
Klāvs Assessment of the potential of renewable energy communities
- I Kudrenickis
Clean energy for all Europeans Package
- Commission
Passive use of solar energy in double skin facades for reduction of cooling loads
- A Borodinecs
- J Zemitis
- A Prozuments
Benchmarking Utility-Scale PV Operational Expenses and Project Lifetimes: Results from a Survey of U.S
- Wiser