Abstract
Considering the vast areas of building rooftops and the fast development of solar utilization technologies, this paper aims to analyze the regional adaptability of solar roof utilization technologies for buildings in China. All provinces and cities in China are divided into 13 zones based on their economic development, thermal climate division, and availability of solar energy resources. Over 100 buildings are investigated, and the information of 28 buildings is analyzed to finally identify 18 typical building types. A new evaluation method is developed for both solar heating systems and solar PV. An adaptability index is developed considering the energy conservation, environment effect, and economy benefit of the systems. The developed method is used to evaluate the solar utilization technologies applied on the 18 buildings across 13 zones. The result show that the average adaptability index values for solar thermal technology and solar PV technology are 2.54 and 1.63, respectively. The solar heating system has a shorter payback time than the solar PV system for most regions of China and therefore is more favored. Recommendations on supporting policies and measures are given for policy makers with an aim to promote the utilization efficiency of building roofs. This paper provides references for the selection and application of relevant solar utilization technologies on building roofs.
Highlights
With the development of urbanization in China, numerous buildings have been built.In 2018, more than 400 million square meters of buildings have been completed in China [1]
Considering the vast areas of building rooftops and the fast development of solar utilization technologies, this paper aims to analyze the regional adaptability of solar roof utilization technologies for buildings in China
A new evaluation method is developed for both solar heating systems and solar PV
Summary
With the development of urbanization in China, numerous buildings have been built.In 2018, more than 400 million square meters of buildings have been completed in China [1]. Assuming that all buildings are 10-story, possible available rooftop area can reach 40 billion square meters. The rooftops of buildings, especially within urban areas, are constantly attracting interests as one important resource. It is a huge waste for the society if the building rooftops are not fully utilized [2,3]. The buildings typically need heat and electricity, which can be partly covered by the available solar energy on the building roofs using solar utilization technologies [4–6]. These solar utilization technologies can be categorized into the following two groups: 1. These solar utilization technologies can be categorized into the following two groups: 1. Solar thermal technology
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