An Autonomous Controller for Ductless Mini-Split Heat Pumps, Residential Solar Thermal Collection, and Hydronic Floor Heating

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Cross ◽  
Kimberly Hammer ◽  
Rick Hurt ◽  
Robert F. Boehm
Keyword(s):  
Low Voltage ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Storage System ◽  
Heat Pumps ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Solar Thermal ◽  
Power Line Communications ◽  
Ip Network ◽  
Heated Floor ◽  
And Storage

A unique autonomous control system was developed to manage the HVAC components of a residence built specifically for an ultra-efficient home competition. Some of the home’s HVAC components that contribute to its ultra-efficiency (and necessitate such an autonomous controller) include multiple ductless mini-split heat pumps, multiple hydronic heated floor loops, multiple circulating ceiling fans, and a closed-loop solar thermal collection and storage system that not only provides hot water to the hydronic heated floors, but also supplies the home with domestic hot water. The autonomous controller integrates all this equipment with a mixture of technology that includes power-line communications, both wired and wireless TCP/IP network signals, low-voltage wiring, and infrared signals. By utilizing these many different methods to communicate with equipment around the home, the controller is able to simultaneously regulate components and systems that are often considered “stand alone” or impractical to implement in residential buildings due to their need for constant manual operation. The result is an HVAC system that consumes very little energy while still providing an expected level of comfort.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment of an Innovative Hybrid Energy Storage System for Residential Buildings in Continental Climates

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 3820
Author(s):  
Noelia Llantoy ◽  
Gabriel Zsembinszki ◽  
Valeria Palomba ◽  
Andrea Frazzica ◽  
Mattia Dallapiccola ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Storage System ◽  
Energy Storage System ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Hybrid Energy ◽  
Hybrid Energy Storage ◽  
Innovative System ◽  
The Impact

With the aim of contributing to achieving the decarbonization of the energy sector, the environmental impact of an innovative system to produce heating and domestic hot water for heating demand-dominated climates is assessed is evaluated. The evaluation is conducted using the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology and the ReCiPe and IPCC GWP indicators for the manufacturing and operation stages, and comparing the system to a reference one. Results show that the innovative system has a lower overall impact than the reference one. Moreover, a parametric study to evaluate the impact of the refrigerant is carried out, showing that the impact of the overall systems is not affected if the amount of refrigerant or the impact of refrigerant is increased.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of an Innovative Compact Hybrid Electrical-Thermal Storage System for Residential Buildings in Mediterranean Climate

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 5322
Author(s):  
Gabriel Zsembinszki ◽  
Noelia Llantoy ◽  
Valeria Palomba ◽  
Andrea Frazzica ◽  
Mattia Dallapiccola ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Mediterranean Climate ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Storage System ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Electrical Consumption ◽  
The Impact

The buildings sector is one of the least sustainable activities in the world, accounting for around 40% of the total global energy demand. With the aim to reduce the environmental impact of this sector, the use of renewable energy sources coupled with energy storage systems in buildings has been investigated in recent years. Innovative solutions for cooling, heating, and domestic hot water in buildings can contribute to the buildings’ decarbonization by achieving a reduction of building electrical consumption needed to keep comfortable conditions. However, the environmental impact of a new system is not only related to its electrical consumption from the grid, but also to the environmental load produced in the manufacturing and disposal stages of system components. This study investigates the environmental impact of an innovative system proposed for residential buildings in Mediterranean climate through a life cycle assessment. The results show that, due to the complexity of the system, the manufacturing and disposal stages have a high environmental impact, which is not compensated by the reduction of the impact during the operational stage. A parametric study was also performed to investigate the effect of the design of the storage system on the overall system impact.

scholarly journals Estimation of Energy Activity and Flexibility Range in Smart Active Residential Building

Smart Cities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 471-495
Author(s):  
Viktor Stepaniuk ◽  
Jayakrishnan Pillai ◽  
Birgitte Bak-Jensen ◽  
Sanjeevikumar Padmanaban
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Energy Management ◽  
Storage Tank ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Active Management ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
And Storage ◽  
Storage Units

The smart active residential buildings play a vital role to realize intelligent energy systems by harnessing energy flexibility from loads and storage units. This is imperative to integrate higher proportions of variable renewable energy generation and implement economically attractive demand-side participation schemes. The purpose of this paper is to develop an energy management scheme for smart sustainable buildings and analyze its efficacy when subjected to variable generation, energy storage management, and flexible demand control. This work estimate the flexibility range that can be reached utilizing deferrable/controllable energy system units such as heat pump (HP) in combination with on-site renewable energy sources (RESs), namely photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind turbine (WT), and in-house thermal and electric energy storages, namely hot water storage tank (HWST) and electric battery as back up units. A detailed HP model in combination with the storage tank is developed that accounts for thermal comforts and requirements, and defrost mode. Data analytics is applied to generate demand and generation profiles, and a hybrid energy management and a HP control algorithm is developed in this work. This is to integrate all active components of a building within a single complex-set of energy management solution to be able to apply demand response (DR) signals, as well as to execute all necessary computation and evaluation. Different capacity scenarios of the HWST and battery are used to prioritize the maximum use of renewable energy and consumer comfort preferences. A flexibility range of 22.3% is achieved for the scenario with the largest HWST considered without a battery, while 10.1% in the worst-case scenario with the smallest HWST considered and the largest battery. The results show that the active management and scheduling scheme developed to combine and prioritize thermal, electrical and storage units in buildings is essential to be studied to demonstrate the adequacy of sustainable energy buildings.

scholarly journals Evaluation of Legionella spp. Colonization in Residential Buildings Having Solar Thermal System for Hot Water Production

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (19) ◽  
pp. 7050
Author(s):  
Michele Totaro ◽  
Anna Laura Costa ◽  
Lorenzo Frendo ◽  
Sara Profeti ◽  
Beatrice Casini ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cold Water ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Water Systems ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Solar Thermal ◽  
Water Production ◽  
Systems Maintenance ◽  
Legionnaires Disease ◽  
Cold Water Temperature

Despite an increase of literature data on Legionella spp. presence in private water systems, epidemiological reports assert a continuing high incidence of Legionnaires’ disease infection in Italy. In this study, we report a survey on Legionella spp. colonization in 58 buildings with solar thermal systems for hot water production (TB). In all buildings, Legionella spp. presence was enumerated in hot and cold water samples. Microbiological potability standards of cold water were also evaluated. Legionella spp. was detected in 40% of the buildings. Moreover, we detected correlations between the count of Legionella spp. and the presence of the optimal temperature for the microorganism growth (less than 40 °C). Our results showed that cold water was free from microbiological hazards, but Legionella spp., was detected when the mean cold water temperature was 19.1 ± 2.2 °C. This may considered close to the suboptimal value for the Legionella growth (more then 20 °C). In conclusion, we observed the presence of a Legionnaires’ disease risk and the need of some strategies aimed to reduce it, such as the application of training programs for all the workers involved in water systems maintenance.

scholarly journals Consumption and Emissions Analysis in Domestic Hot Water Hotels. Case Study: Canary Islands

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 599 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Díaz Pérez ◽  
Ricardo Díaz Martín ◽  
Francisco Pérez Trujillo ◽  
Moises Díaz ◽  
Adib Mouhaffel
Keyword(s):  
High Temperature ◽  
Carbon Footprint ◽  
Canary Islands ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Heat Pumps ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Solar Thermal ◽  
Solar Panels ◽  
Domestic Hot Water ◽  
Temperature Heat

We analyze the energy consumption of domestic hot water (DHW) in the hotels of the archipelago of the Canary Islands (Spain). Currently, systems use fossil fuels of propane and gas oil. However, this paper analyzes several alternative systems which focus on renewable and mixed energies, such as biomass, solar thermal and heat pumps systems associated with an electric generation with photovoltaic solar panels for self-consumption. The carbon footprint generated is calculated for each method of generation of DHW. In our analysis, we demonstrate that by using a high-temperature heat pump with an average coefficient of performance (COP) equal to or greater than 4.4 associated with photovoltaic solar panels, a zero-emission domestic hot water system can be achieved, when the installation area of the photovoltaic solar panels is equal to that of the solar thermal system. The importance of DHW’s carbon footprint is proven, as is the efficiency of using high-temperature heat pumps associated with photovoltaic solar panels. As such, such mixed system suggests that the generation of DHW would have zero emissions with maximum annual savings according to hotel occupancy, between 112,417 and 137,644 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), compared to current boilers based on fossil fuels.

Solar-Assisted Heat Pump Systems: A Review of Existing Studies and Their Applicability to the Canadian Residential Sector

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Chu ◽  
Cynthia A. Cruickshank
Keyword(s):  
Heat Pump ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
International Energy Agency ◽  
Heat Pumps ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Performance Criteria ◽  
Space Heating ◽  
Residential Sector ◽  
Heating And Cooling ◽  
System Configurations

Heat pumps are commonly used for space-heating and cooling requirements. The combination of solar thermal and heat pump systems as a single solar-assisted heat pump (SAHP) system is a promising technology for offsetting domestic hot water, space-heating and cooling loads more efficiently. Task 44 of the Solar Heating and Cooling Programme of the International Energy Agency is currently investigating ways to optimize SAHP systems for residential use. This paper presents a review of past and current work conducted on SAHP systems. Specifically, the key performance data from many studies are highlighted and different system configurations are compared in order to establish insight towards which system configurations are suitable for the Canadian residential sector. It was found that the most suitable configuration for Canadian residential buildings depend on a combination of factors which may include occupant behavior, building characteristics, operation parameters, system components, the performance criteria of interest and climate. A large variety of configurations and parameters exist for SAHP systems and this made analyzing a specific system, comparing differing systems and establishing an optimal design fairly difficult. It was found that different authors used various different performance criterions and this inconsistency also added to the difficulty of comparing the studies of different systems. Overall, a standard performance criterion needs to be established for SAHP systems in order to meaningfully compare different configurations and determine optimal configurations for certain requirements.

scholarly journals Experimental Study and Modeling of Ground-Source Heat Pumps with Combi-Storage in Buildings

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wessam El-Baz ◽  
Peter Tzscheutschler ◽  
Ulrich Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Heat Pump ◽  
Water Consumption ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Heat Pumps ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Space Heating ◽  
Ground Source Heat Pumps ◽  
Domestic Hot Water ◽  
Ground Source ◽  
And Control

There is a continuous growth of heat pump installations in residential buildings in Germany. The heat pumps were not only used for space heating and domestic hot water consumption but also to offer flexibility to the grid. the high coefficient of performance and the low cost of heat storages made the heat pumps an optimal candidate for the power to heat applications. Thus, several questions are raised about the optimal integration and control of the heat pump system with buffer storages to maximize its operation efficiency and minimize the operation costs. In this paper, an experimental investigation is performed to study the performance of a ground source heat pump (GSHP) with a combi-storage under several configurations and control factors. The experiments were performed on an innovative modular testbed that is capable of emulating a ground source to provide the heat pump with different temperature levels at different times of the day. Moreover, it can emulate the different building loads such as the space heating load and the domestic hot water consumption in real-time. The data gathered from the testbed and different experimental studies were used to develop a simulation model based on Modelica that can accurately simulate the dynamics of a GSHP in a building. The model was validated based on different metrics. Energetically, the difference between the developed model and the measured values was only 3.08\% and 4.18\% for the heat generation and electricity consumption, respectively.

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