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Comfort assessment and energy performance analysis of a novel adjustable semi-transparent photovoltaic window under different rule-based controls

  • Research Article
  • Building Thermal, Lighting, and Acoustics Modeling
  • Published:
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Abstract

Self-powered photovoltaic windows, which integrate photovoltaic with electrochromic devices, have attracted widespread attention of scholars since they can generate electricity in situ and reduce building energy consumption by modulating the transmitted solar radiation. However, previous studies mainly focused on the material development and performance characterization, lack of comfort assessment and energy saving potential of its application to buildings. To address this issue, an adjustable semi-transparent photovoltaic (ATPV) window which integrates CdTe-based photovoltaic and WO3-based electrochromic, was taken as the research object, and a novel rule-based control strategy taking the beam solar radiation luminous efficacy (CtrlEff) as decision variable was proposed for the first time. The ATPV window model was established in WINDOW software based on the measured data, and then it was exported to integrated with a medium office building model in EnergyPlus for performance evaluation including the visual comfort, thermal comfort, net energy consumption, and net-zero energy ratio. The results of a case study in Changsha (E 112°, N 28°) indicated that the ATPV window under the CtrlEff strategy can effectively reduce the southward and westward intolerable glare by 86.9% and 94.9%, respectively, and increase the thermal comfort hours by 5% and 2%, compared to the Low-E window. Furthermore, the net-zero energy consumption can be decreased by 58.7%, 65.7%, 64.1%, and 53.8% for south, west, east, and north orientations, and the corresponding net-zero energy ratios are 65.1%, 54.6%, 62.7%, and 61.6%, respectively. The findings of this study provide new strategies for the control and optimization of the adjustable window.

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Abbreviations

ATPV:

adjustable semi-transparent photovoltaic window

CtrlEff:

beam solar radiation luminous efficacy control

CtrlHeat:

heat flow control

CtrlIll:

indoor illuminance control

CtrlRad:

incident solar radiation control

DGI:

discomfort glare index

EMS:

energy management system

I t :

thermal performance improvement (%)

PCE:

photon-to-electron conversion efficiency

PMV:

predicted mean vote

R g :

glare reduction (%)

R net :

ratio of net-zero energy hours (%)

R sol :

solar reflectance

SHGC:

solar heat gain coefficient

T sol :

solar transmittance

T vis :

visible transmittance

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Acknowledgements

This study has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51978252), the High-tech Industry Technology Innovation Leading Plan of Hunan Province (2020GK2076), the Science and Technology Innovation Program of Hunan Province (2020RC5003), the Hunan Province Innovation Development Program (2020RC4045), and the Hunan Province Key R&D Program (2021SK2045).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Civil Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, China

    Yutong Tan, Jinqing Peng, Yimo Luo & Nianping Li

  2. Key Laboratory of Building Safety and Energy Efficiency of the Ministry of Education, Changsha, Hunan, China

    Yutong Tan, Jinqing Peng, Yimo Luo & Nianping Li

  3. School of Energy and Power Engineering, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha, Hunan, China

    Meng Wang

  4. Leadus Glass Technology (shenzhen) Co., LTD, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, China

    Aotian Song

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  1. Yutong Tan
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Contributions

Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Yutong Tan and supervised by Jinqing Peng. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Yutong Tan and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jinqing Peng.

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Tan, Y., Peng, J., Wang, M. et al. Comfort assessment and energy performance analysis of a novel adjustable semi-transparent photovoltaic window under different rule-based controls. Build. Simul. 16, 2343–2361 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-023-1011-7

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