The effect of floor material and construction solutions and the type of heating system on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – A case study

Abstract

The paper deals with the issue of greenhouse gas emissions from heating a livestock building using various energy carriers. The purpose of the study was to calculate the emissions of some pollutants (total dust, CO, CO2, NOx, SOx, benzo(a)pyrene) resulting from the heating of the broiler house, using gaseous fuel, coal and fuel oil, in two variants of material and construction solutions of the floor. The scope of work included measurement of selected microclimate parameters, validation and calibration of the model, calculations and analysis of the obtained results. Continuous measurements of selected indoor and outdoor microclimate parameters, such as outdoor and indoor air temperature and relative humidity, floor temperature, wind speed and direction, solar radiation intensity, were conducted in the studied facility. The study used the numerical method of elementary balances to calculate energy demand in selected design variants. A geometric model was created, corresponding to the real dimensions. Based on the measurement data obtained, validation of the computational model was carried out. The obtained results of the numerical analysis were used to calculate selected indicators of greenhouse gas emissions from the studied building. Six calculation variants were assumed, in which different types of heat carriers were taken into account. The obtained results show that NOx emissions when heating the building with hard coal are 74% higher than when using gaseous fuel. Increasing the thermal resistance of the floor to 3.69 m2K·W-1, this reduced the annual energy demand by 56.1% for hard coal and by 15.8% when using fuel oil.