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Comprehensive energy, economic, environmental assessment of a building integrated photovoltaic-thermoelectric system with battery storage for net zero energy building

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  • Building Systems and Components
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Abstract

To realize the goal of net zero energy building (NZEB), the integration of renewable energy and novel design of buildings is needed. The paths of energy demand reduction and additional energy supply with renewables are separated. In this study, those two are merged into one integration. The concept is based on the combination of photovoltaic, thermoelectric modules, energy storage and control algorithms. Five types of building envelope systems, namely PV+TE (S1), Grid+TE (S2), PV+Grid+TE (S3), PV+Battery+TE (S4) and PV+Grid+Battery+TE (S5) are studied, from aspects of energy, economic and environmental (E3) performance. The new envelope systems can achieve thermal load reduction while providing additional cooling/heating supply, which can promote advance of NZEBs. It is found that there is a typical optimum setting of thermal energy load for each one of them with minimum annual power consumption. Except for the S1 system, the rest can realize negative accumulated power consumption in a year-round operation, which means the thermal load of building envelope could be zero. The uniform annual cost for S1 to S5 under interest rate of 0.04 are 19.78, 14.77, 23.83, 60.53, 64.94 $/m2, respectively. The S5 system has the highest environmental effect with 3.04 t/m2 reduction of CO2 over 30 years of operation.

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Abbreviations

a :

thermal diffusivity coefficient

A :

area

C :

specific heat capacity

d :

thickness

dt :

time step

h :

heat transfer coefficient

hx :

index denoting seasons

H :

height

G :

solar radiation intensity

i :

interest rate

I :

electric current

K :

Boltzmann’s constant

n :

operation year

n 0 :

diode ideality factor

N :

superposition number

p s :

net present cost

P :

power

q :

absolute value of electron’s charge

q s :

heat source intensity

Q :

thermal load

r :

distance

R :

thermal resistance

S :

salvage value

T :

temperature

V :

voltage

x :

area ratio parameter

α :

Seebeck coefficient/absorptivity

λ :

thermal conductivity

δ :

thickness

ρ :

density

ξ :

common parameter

Al:

aluminum

batt:

battery

c:

cold/cooling/charging

cmax:

maximum limit of charging

cont:

contact

d:

discharge

f:

fluid

h:

hot/heating

in:

indoor air

ins:

insulation

max:

maximum

mrt:

area-weighted average radiant temperature

ph:

photon

sys:

system

w:

building wall

AMC:

annual maintenance cost

ASV:

annual salvage value

BIPVTE:

building integrated photovoltaic thermoelectric wall

CEPS:

cost of electric power saving

CF:

capacity fraction

CRF:

capital recovery factor

EPBD:

energy performance of buildings directive

FAC:

first annual cost

LF:

load fraction

MPC:

model predictive control

NPV:

net present value

NZEB:

net zero energy building

PBP:

payback period

PEB:

positive energy building

PV:

photovoltaic

SC:

self-consumption

SOC:

state of charge

STC:

standard testing condition

TE:

thermoelectric

TEM:

thermoelectric module

TMY:

typical meteorological year

UAC:

uniform annual cost

ZEB:

zero energy building

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Acknowledgements

This study is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2019YFE0193100, No. 2021YFE0113500); the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China (No. 2019kfyXJJS189, No. 2020kfyXJJS097); Research Project of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of China “Research and Demonstration of Optimal Configuration of Energy Storage System in Nearly Zero Energy Communities” (K20210466).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Yongqiang Luo, Nan Cheng, Zhiyong Tian & Guozhi Xu

  2. Institute of Building Environment and Energy, China Academy of Building Research, Beijing, 100013, China

    Shicong Zhang & Xinyan Yang

  3. Department of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, DK 2800, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Jianhua Fan

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  1. Yongqiang Luo
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  2. Nan Cheng
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  4. Zhiyong Tian
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  5. Guozhi Xu
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  7. Jianhua Fan
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Contributions

Yongqiang Luo: conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, writing—original draft, funding acquisition. Nan Cheng: writing—review and editing. Shicong Zhang: methodology, writing—review and editing. Zhiyong Tian and Xinyan Yang: methodology, software, validation, writing—original draft, funding acquisition. Guozhi Xu and Jianhua Fan: writing—review and editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhiyong Tian.

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The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

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Luo, Y., Cheng, N., Zhang, S. et al. Comprehensive energy, economic, environmental assessment of a building integrated photovoltaic-thermoelectric system with battery storage for net zero energy building. Build. Simul. 15, 1923–1941 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-022-0904-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-022-0904-1

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