In October 2009, Team North competed in the US DOE 2009 Solar Decathlon competition. Team North's mission was to design and deliver North House, an energy efficient solar-powered home while training Canada's next generation of leaders in sustainable design. In North House, the PV system on the roof was the primary energy generation, complimented by a custom PV cladding system on the south, east and west facades. A solar assisted heat pump system, including a three-tank heat transfer and storage system, the horizontally mounted evacuated-tube solar thermal collectors on the roof and a variable capacity heat pump met the hot water and space heating demands. A second variable capacity heat pump was utilized for space cooling. The solar thermal system was studied using TRNSYS simulation. For the initial assessments the simulations were run for Baltimore. Then, the analyses were extended to different cities across Canada. In all scenarios the same house was linked to the system. The minimum annual solar fraction of the different cities was 64% and it rose up to 81%. Finally, the data measured during the competition were analyzed and compared with the data resulting from the simulation. According to competition measures, during the 10 days of competition in Washington DC, the PV system generated 271.6kWh of electricity and the solar thermal system produced 91.7kWh while the house consumption was 294.1kWh. As a result, North House was evidently a net-positive house.
Design of automation control thermal system integrated with parabolic trough collector based solar plant
