Commercial applications of solar total energy systems. Final report. Volume 2. Technical

Abstract

The overall objective of this program was to assess the feasibility of using solar energy to provide a significant fraction of the energy needs of commercial buildings that have energy demands greater than 200 kWe. This volume of the final report discusses the approach employed to develop: (1) STES concept configurations and component data, (2) commercial buildings application data, and (3) computer simulation programs for evaluating various STES concept-commercial buildings applications. Various solar thermal and photovoltaic solar total energy systems (STES) configurations were considered. Concurrently, data on commercial buildings (e.g., categories, energy demand, demographic population, etc.) were developed and used to define six model building configurations which could be used as representative commercial buildings within six various regions (12 specific sites) of the United States. The six configurations included four building types (a low rise office building, a large retail store, a medium-size shopping center and a large shopping center) typifying current building designs. The remaining two configurations used the large shopping center model except that the energy demand was changed to reflect future building designs. The STESEP Computer Code was developed for a quick evaluation method for tradeoffs related to (1) cascading of thermal power conversion systems, (2) determinationmore » of optimum collector sizes and operating conditions (make or buy decisions for auxiliary energy), and (3) comparison of solar total energy concepts in various parts of the country and in various types of commercial buildings to assess their future economic potential for various economic scenarios. (WHK)« less