Experimental and numerical approach for the evaluation of PV-system performance on energy and environmental behavior of nearly zero energy buildings: Case study in Mediterranean climate

Abstract

Nowadays, the performance of photovoltaic (PV) systems has strategic role for satisfying the standard of net or nearly zero energy building with in-situ production. In this frame, the novelty of the paper is the proposal of a combined experimental and numerical approach for evaluating the mismatch between PV production and consumptions during design, operational and future performance under expected emissions scenarios. First of all, it proposes a comparison of production estimation by means of several tools for the evaluation of the energy balance in the design phase; then the expected and real behavior is compared with also the evaluation of the performance ratio (PR) evolution as function of cell temperature. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is proposed in the short and medium scenarios by varying the size of installed system and considering the degradation rate under future weather conditions. The approach is applied to a case study in a typical Mediterranean climate, starting from the monitoring data available for the building energy request and the renewable production (2016–2022). The results of the case study indicate that the PR greatly influences the performance, mainly under expected climate changes, since the operational emissions could increase of more than 15 % compared to actual performance also if the zero energy balance is satisfied. Furthermore, through a sensitivity analysis on the PV-system size, the study demonstrates that with a maximum linear degradation rate of 1.51 %/year, the building could be configured as nearly zero energy in the medium term (20 years) also with lower peak power. The analysis also suggests that the maximization of installed power is a prerequisite to follow the implementation of positive energy goal because, under all considered climatic evolutions it can balance the penalties both due to technical aspects that to modification of consumption and production profiles.