Comparative analysis of energy demand and CO2 emissions of residential buildings

Abstract

Rapid expansion of solar thermal energy for increasing energy efficiency of buildings has been adopted in short/medium and long-term energy strategies of EU countries. Within this context, the overall objective of this work is to develop an innovative high performance and cost effective hybrid solar heat and power system. The initial application is to be implemented in individual dwellings and small business residential buildings for onsite electricity and heat generation using solar thermal energy. It is estimated that the proposed technology will deliver 60% of domestic energy requirements and provide 20% reduction in energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions compared to the best existing low carbon energy technologies. The aim of this study consists in performing a comparative analysis of the different building typologies, which can host this technology, and their energy demands for heating and domestic hot water, as well as their CO2 emissions.

This study has received funding from Eurepean Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement Nº 723596 (Innova MicroSolar) and Nº 657466 (INPATH-TES). The work is partially funded by the Sapnish government ENE2015-64117-C5-1-R (MINECO/FEDER) and ENE2015-64117-C5-3-R (MINECO/FEDER). GREA is certified agent TECNIO in the cathegory of technology developers from the Government of Catalonia. The authors would like to thanks the Calatan Governmnet for the quality accreditation given to their research group (2014 SGR 123). Alvaro de Gracia would like to thanks Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad de España for Grant Juan de la Cierva, FJCI-2014-19940.