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In the present work, the operating results from an innovative, renewable, energy-based space-heating and domestic hot water (DHW) system are shown. The system used solar thermal energy as its primary source and was assisted by a shallow geothermal application in order to accommodate the space-heating and DHW needs of a domestic building in Austria. The system incorporated phase-change materials (PCMs) in specially designed containers to function as heat-storage modules and provide an energy storage capability for both the space-heating and DHW subsystems. This system was designed, implemented, and tested under real operating conditions in a building for a period of one year. The operating and energy results for the system are demonstrated in this work. The system was compared with a conventional one, and a reduction in the primary energy consumption equal to 84.3% was achieved. The maintenance and operating costs of the system were reduced by 79.7% compared to the conventional system, thus significantly contributing to the NZEB target of the building. The newly proposed system, although presenting an increased operating complexity, utilizes an innovative self-learning control system that manages all of its operations. The combination of a solar thermal energy source with thermal energy storage increases the use of renewable energy by extending the capacity of the system beyond the solar hours and using excess solar energy for space-heating needs. The thermal energy storage unit also increases the energy and economic efficiency of the geothermal heat pump by operating it during the hours of a reduced electricity tariff and using the stored energy during hours of a high electricity demand. The cost for the installation of such a system is higher than a conventional one, but due to the significantly decreased operating costs, the pay-back period was calculated to be 8.7 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of photovoltaic (PV) panels has increased rapidly in the last few years and as a result has become one of the main sources of renewable energy. In this context, it is important to understand in detail how a PV panel reacts to different environmental conditions and how these affect total performance. An experiment has been designed to investigate the performance of a PV panel under various highly non-uniform temperature and irradiance profiles, generated by artificial lighting. Measurements of irradiance and temperature distribution are related to measured I–V curves and used as input to the five-parameter model. The results show the limitations of the model to emulate the PV response under such extreme conditions and provide useful insights about the effect of the temperature profile on the PV performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An innovative thermal energy storage system (TESSe2b) was retrofitted in a residential building in Cyprus with a typical Mediterranean climate. The system comprises flat-plate solar collectors, thermal energy storage tanks filled with organic phase change material, a geothermal installation consisting of borehole heat exchangers with and without phase change material and a ground source heat pump, an advanced self-learning control system, backup devices and several other auxiliary components. The thermal energy storage tanks cover the building's needs at certain temperature ranges (10–17 °C for cooling, 38–45 °C for heating and 50–60 °C for domestic hot water). A performance evaluation was conducted by comparing the TESSe2b system with the existing conventional heating and cooling system. The systems were simulated using commercial software, and the performance of the systems and the building's energy needs were calculated. Based on the energy quantities, an economic analysis followed. The equivalent annual primary energy consumption with the conventional system resulted in being 43335 kWh, while for the storage system, it was only 8398 kWh. The payback period for the storage system was calculated to be equal to 9.76 years. The operation of the installed storage system provided data for calculations of the seasonal performance factor and storage performance. The seasonal performance factor values were very high during June, July and August, since the TESSe2b system works very efficiently in cooling mode due to the very high temperatures that dominate in Cyprus. The measured stored thermal energy for cooling, heating and domestic hot water resulted in being 14.5, 21.9 and 6.2 kWh, respectively. Moreover, the total volume of the phase change material thermal energy storage tanks for heating and domestic hot water was calculated to be roughly several times smaller than the volume of a tank with water as a storage medium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]