Abstract
The Solar Decathlon is an international competition that challenges collegiate teams from around the world to design and build functioning, sustainable, solar powered houses. The competition is split into ten sub-contests which vary from competition to competition. Contests are a combination of juried (judged by a panel experts) or measured (such as energy usage and thermal comfort) contests. This paper will focus on the measured contests, in particular; energy management, comfort conditions and house functioning. To ensure optimal house performance during the competition, extensive energy and thermal modelling is required to ensure the solar PV and on-site energy storage can achieve net-zero energy while also ensuring the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system can meet the strict indoor thermal comfort requirements set by the competition. This paper will review the energy and thermal modelling process of Team UOW Australia’s net-positive energy house, the ‘Desert Rose’, that achieved second place in the Solar Decathlon Middle East (SDME) competition in 2018. Upon reviewing the energy modelling process, the results from the energy simulations will be compared to the real data that was obtained during the SDME competition to determine the validity of the energy simulations and the subsequent benefits of in-depth energy modelling for competing in a Solar Decathlon.
Highlights
The Solar Decathlon is a competition that was created in partnership with the U.S Department of Energy to promote renewable and emerging technologies in the residential building sector [1, 2]
Since moisture can be more effectively trapped on desiccant material at a lower temperature, the desiccant coated heat exchanger enables the removal of adsorption heat during the air dehumidification process when it serves as an evaporator, which significantly improves the dehumidification performance
Extensive energy modelling of active systems in Team University of Wollongong (UOW)’s Desert Rose house proved beneficial in successfully designing and building a thermally comfortable, net-positive energy home. Much of this modelling contributed to Team UOW placing 2nd overall at the Solar Decathlon Middle East (SDME) 2018 competition
Summary
This data was used for all electrical and thermal modelling throughout the design process. It was shown that ambient temperature and relative humidity were only within the required band simultaneously for 4.2% and 3.3% of time in 2014 and 2105 respectively [4] This meant that natural ventilation would rarely be able to be used to remain within required comfort bands. Due to potential benefits relating to reduced energy consumption, automated windows for natural ventilation were employed in the DRH
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