Numerical investigation of PVT coverage on an integrated building-solar-heat pump system: Technical and economic study

Abstract

The application of Photovoltaic/Thermal and heat pumps in buildings is becoming more and more attractive to many scholars due to its advantage of providing building heating and cooling with clean energy that has less negative effects on the environment. In this research, we have investigated the energy coverage of different PVT sizes to satisfy the electricity demand of heat pump system to provide heating and cooling applications in a habitation building of three rooms in Chengdu city of China in the line of Zero Net Energy Homes. The Photovoltaic/Thermal system investigated here provides thermal energy for Domestic Hot Water while generating the electrical energy to the building equipment and operates air heat pump units responsible of cooling and heating the building. TRNSYS as thermal dynamic software is used to model and simulate the annual coverage of the Photovoltaic/Thermal module through solar fraction determination where the results show that there is a significant increase in solar electrical fraction with the increase of the Photovoltaic/Thermal area. The highest electrical solar factor of 0.85 and 0.56 were achieved with a Photovoltaic/Thermal module of total area of 78 m2 during the transition months of April and October, respectively. The economic analysis shows that the Photovoltaic/Thermal technology is not that much competitive in Chengdu city due to the weather with medium annual solar radiation intensity and high discount rate of Photovoltaic power in China.