Chapter 375 - A Trnsys Simulation to Study Effect of External Fixed Horizontal Louver Shading Devices on Sizing of Cooling and Heating Systems for Buildings

Abstract

In most parts of the world both cooling in summer and heating in winter are necessary to maintain the thermal comfort conditions inside a building. This chapter investigates the effect of fixed external horizontal shading devices on the sizing of heating and cooling devices of a building by TRNSYS simulation, in which a shading routine has been added. This was done for four cities of Italy—Milano, Roma, Napoli, and Palermo, whose weather ranges from moderately warm to very warm summer and cold to moderately cold winter conditions. It was found that the percentage of size increase for heating in winter is very small as compared to air conditioner size reduction for cooling in summer. In fact, about 15 to 19% of size reduction for cooling is achieved by using the appropriate shading devices. This is a very large value, particularly when the capitol costs for cooling systems are far higher than those of heating systems of the same size. So in terms of price of installation, although putting a shading device might marginally increase the cost of heating, the more substantial reduction in the cost of cooling would more than compensate it. Therefore, installing proper shading devices has an overall positive effect so far as sizing goes.