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The building envelopes are exposed to the hot-humid climate with high humidity in hot summer and cold winter zone (HSCW) of China. The moisture transfer may severely influence the conduction loads through exterior walls. In this paper, a coupled heat and moisture transfer model is developed and validated to investigate the thermal performance of exterior walls. The conduction loads through a typical exterior wall are used to evaluate the effect of moisture transfer on the thermal performance of exterior walls in HSCW zone of China. The results show that the peak cooling and heating loads are overestimated by 2.1–3.9% and 4.2–10.1%, respectively, when ignoring moisture transfer. In cooling season, the sum of the latent load accounts for 14.3–52.2% of the sum of the total load and the yearly latent load accounts for 4.9–6.1% of the yearly total load when considering moisture transfer. The total cooling, heating and the yearly load are underestimated by 9.9–34.4%, 1.7–4.0%, and 5.2–6.8%, respectively, when ignoring moisture transfer. The results indicate that ignoring moisture transfer causes significant discrepancy in predicting the conduction loads. A detailed model considering moisture transfer in building envelope is essential to accurately evaluate the building energy performance in HSCW zone of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents the performance evaluation of a hybrid photovoltaic thermal (Semi transparent PVT) double pass facade for space heating. The thermal model has been developed by using the energy balance equations of the proposed hybrid photovoltaic thermal double pass facade under quasi-steady state condition. Numerical computations have been carried out for the composite climate of New Delhi, India. An analysis has been carried out to calculate annual energy and exergy gain for the hybrid photovoltaic thermal double pass facade. On the basis of numerical results it has been observed that the annual thermal and electrical energy are 480.81kWh and 469.87kWh respectively. The yearly overall thermal energy generated by the system has been calculated as 1729.84kWh. It is also observed that the room air temperature increases by 5–6°C than the ambient air temperature for a typical winter day. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]