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General Electric Company was one of four contractors who received a contract in early January 1974 to design, build, and install a solar heating experiment in a public school. The overall objective of this program was to obtain data that would assist in evaluating the applicability of solar heating systems in large metropolitan areas. This data was to be an "operational" nature, in contrast to theoretical, and to encompass the areas of construction, societal interactions, economics, and aesthetics, as well as the thermal performance aspects. The data was obtained by constructng and operating a solar heating system of pilot plant scale on a middle school in Boston, Massachusetts. The Grover Cleveland School was the first solar heating experiment to come on line for continuous operation when heat was supplied at 4:10 p.m. on March 6, 1974. The system was operated through May 15, 1974. The experimental data collected during this period is presented in this report. The report describes the system in detail, presents the analysis of operation, and discusses recommendations and conclusions based on the results of the experiment. (Author/MLF)

In the middle of January 1974, AAI Corporation received a contract to conduct a solar heating proof-of-concept experiment (POCE) for a public school building. On March 1, 1974, the experiment began as Timonium Elementary School, in Maryland, became the first school in the United States to be heated by solar energy. In this brief period, the corporation designed, manufactured, and installed a solar energy collector array complete with mounting trusses, a 15,000 gallon water storage tank, a hot water heating system, and instrumentation. From March 1 to May 15 the wing of the school chosen for the solar experiment received 90 percent of its heat from the solar heating system. Experimental data collected during this period is presented in this report. The report describes the system in detail, presents the analysis of operation, and discusses recommendations and conclusions based on the results of the experiment. The experiment is considered successful since it has proven that the solar heating of schools is possible, practical, and socially acceptable. In addition, over 1,200 gallons of fuel oil were saved in the brief period the system has been in operation. (Author/MLF)

This report presents the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) program plan for solar heating and cooling of buildings and for agricultural and industrial process applications. An overview of the program plan is followed by a description of the ten paths to the solar heating and cooling of buildings and a brief discussion of the agricultural and industrial process applications. The appendices present detailed information on the tasks, including flow diagrams for the heating and cooling tasks, brief descriptions of these tasks and of the nonengineering tasks, and an indication of the importance of each nonengineering task to the overall research and development program. (Author/MLF)

This interim report reviews the major incentive policy options available to accelerate market penetration of solar heating and cooling (SHAC) systems. Feasible policy options designed to overcome existing barriers to commercial acceptance and market penetration are identified and evaluated. The report is divided into seven sections, each dealing with a key problem relating to the widespread use of SHAC systems: (1) economic and financial incentives; (2) solar energy/public utility interface; (3) legal and regulatory issues; (4) Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) patent policy; (5) building codes, standards, and warranties; (6) marketing, manpower, consumer, and environmental issues; and (7) regional aspects of the incentives program. Within each of these areas the important potential barriers to the commercialization of SHAC systems are identified, assessed, and evaluated. The most effective incentive options are evaluated and in a detailed, comprehensive appendix, each of these incentive options is analyzed in depth, and numerous other potential incentives are also discussed. Listings of state solar energy legislation enacted or proposed as of January 1977 are given in the appendix. (Author/MLF)

A study has been made at the National Bureau of Standards of the different techniques that are or could be used for testing solar collectors and thermal storage devices that are used in solar heating and cooling systems. This report reviews the various testing methods and outlines a recommended test procedure, including apparatus and instrumentation, for both components. The recommended procedures have been written in the format of a standard of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and have been submitted to that organization for consideration. (Author)

The Center for Building Technology (CBT) provides the technical and scientific bases for criteria and standards that improve the usefulness, safety, and economy of buildings. CBT research also aims at conserving building materials and energy. Individual projects may emphasize one or more of the center's typical activities in providing improved knowledge, in usable form, to the building community. Typical activities include problem analysis to define and characterize needs for improved building practices; research to obtain vital new knowledge, technical problem solving to develop improved practices from the best available knowledge; dissemination of results to users in the building community; and impact analysis to show how well the center's work has met the building community's needs and whether elements of the original problem remain unresolved or new problems exist. This report summarizes CBT's research for calendar year 1976. Each summary lists the project title, its progress, point of contact within CBT, and sponsor. This report supersedes the 1976 edition of SP446, which covered the 1975 CBT projects. (Author)

The Center for Building Technology (CBT) provides the technical and scientific bases for criteria and standards that improve the usefulness, safety, and economy of buildings while conserving building materials and energy. CBT's activities support the building technology program of the federal, state, and local government; assist design professions, building officials, and the research community by developing design criteria that improve buildings; and assist manufacturers of building products by developing criteria for evaluating innovative building materials. The report summarizes CBT's research for calendar year 1975. Each summary lists the project title, its progress, point of contact within CBT, and sponsor. The summaries presented in this report are arranged by subject-matter categories to group like projects. (Author/MLF)

This report discusses many of the economic and policy questions related to the widespread introduction of solar power, presents recent progress in developing solar technologies and advancing their economic feasibility, and reviews some recommendations that have been made for achieving the early introduction and sustained application of solar technology, including suggestions for improving the federal solar energy program. Some of the topics included are: solar thermal energy, photovoltaic solar cells, biomass, wind energy conversion, small-scale hydropower, ocean thermal energy conversion, and energy storage. (BB)

This publication provides data on the angles governing the design of sunshading devices for educational buildings in the countries of the Asian region and gives examples of the ways in which these data can be used. Different methods of excluding direct sunlight from teaching spaces are illustrated in a series of diagrams that show exclusion by roof overhang, louvres, adjustable shutters, and grills. Sunshading diagrams for latitudes 32 degrees North to 10 degrees South give the angle of the sun for a variety of building orientations. These angles can be used without further calculation to determine the projection of a sunshade that will exclude sun from the opening it protects. (Author/MLF)

The purpose of this report is to provide reference material on the technical options for energy conservation in buildings. Actions pertinent to existing buildings and new buildings are considered separately. Regarding existing buildings, principal topics include summer cooling, winter heating, and other energy-related features such as insulation, fenestration, lighting, appliances, hot water, and human comfort. Suggested actions include those which can be accomplished voluntarily or without expense and those which require some modest effort or expense on the part of the building owner or occupant. Regarding new buildings, energy conservation actions that deal with building design and mechanical systems are described. The report concludes with a summary of mechanisms for implementation of conservation methods and criteria for use in evaluation of them. Throughout the report, emphasis is placed on technical options. The economic implications of such options have not been detailed. (Author/MLF)

Five privately owned homes and two university owned homes were examined by architecture students in order to formulate design alternatives to fit the houses with solar collection, storage, and control devices for supplementing domestic space and/or water heating. General principles advanced include why energy conservation and solar retrofitting are important today, and conservation in existing homes as a response to local climatic opportunities, reevaluated assumptions of comfort, general domestic habits, architectural response, and the resulting energy use. Specific alternatives include a description of each home, the owners, their existing comfort requirements, energy needs, and a range of architectural and domestic lifestyle alternatives for energy conservation and solar retrofitting. (Author/MLF)

Solar system designs for 13 cities were optimized so as to minimize the life cycle cost over the assumed 20-year lifetime of the solar energy systems. A number of major assumptions were made regarding the solar system, type and use of building, financial considerations, and economic environment used in the design optimization. Seven optimum designs were developed for each city. In each case, comparisons were made with electric, oil, and natural gas water heating; and with electric resistive, electric heat pump, oil, and natural gas space heating. In each case, the backup conventional system used in the analysis was assumed to be the same as the competitive conventional system used in the analysis. To incorporate geographic variation, the study incorporated different climatic data, current 1976 incremental conventional fuel costs, building energy loads, and collector elevation angles for each city. Based on comparison with conventional energy costs, solar water heating and solar space heating installed at an equivalent system cost of $20 per square foot of collector are competitive today against electric resistance systems throughout most of the U.S. If the cost should be reduced to $10 per square foot by 1980 through a combination of technical innovations and incentives, solar hot water and heat would be economically competitive against all residential fuel types. (Author/MLF)

Brief abstracts of projects funded by the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) and conducted under the National Program for Solar Heating and Cooling of Buildings are presented in three volumes. This, the second volume, identifies the major efforts currently underway in support of the national program. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is responsible for the management of the projects contained in the first section, Development in Support of the Demonstrations. The major thrust of this program is to ensure that truly marketable solar energy systems and subsystems will be available for testing and evaluation in the demonstration program. The second section of the report, Standards and Criteria Development, reflects the effort conducted by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS). It contains efforts underway to satisfy both ERDA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requirements for solar systems such as performance criteria; standards, test, and evaluation; and technical data requirements. (Author/MLF)

Data presented in this report indicate that solar space and water heating are possible in the Pacific Northwest. The first section of the report contains solar records from several stations in the region illustrating space heating needs that could be met, on an average daily basis, by solar energy. The data are summarized, and some preliminary planning hints are offered including analyzing a site for solar collector suitability, and a procedure for sizing a collector and storage tank. The second section discusses two of the earliest solar collector houses in the area and compares them with three well-known solar houses elsewhere. A selected bibliography on solar energy in architecture is included. The concluding section contains photographs and descriptions of local design solutions that exclude summer sun but welcome winter light, including the effects of trees and vines. Climatological charts, based on eight years of data from the weather bureau at the Eugene airport, are included for the purpose of exploring low-energy building design in general. (MLF)