Investigation of the Performance of Solar Thermal Systems with Seasonal Storage for domestic applications
Antoniadis, Christodoulos
This dissertation was written as a part of the MSc in Energy Systems at the International Hellenic University. The dissertation investigates the performance of Solar Thermal Systems which utilize Seasonal (long-term) Thermal Energy Storage (STES) for domestic applications. The STES concept concerns the storage of heat in large facilities during the summer period for later use during autumn and winter, when heating load is demanded. Specifically the TRNSYS software has been used in order to design and simulate such a solar thermal system with seasonal storage. Flat plate solar collectors are installed in order to collect solar energy and charge two stratified water tanks, a short term DHW tank and a long term STES tank. The last one is connected through a heat exchanger with a single zone building, contributing to the space heating when thermal energy is available. Simulation results for the city of Thessaloniki showed that up to 40.1 % of the space heating load for a specific single-family detached home can be covered by this seasonal storage configuration. With regard to the DHW performance, the solar fraction reaches 76 %. At this point I would like to express my gratitude to the supervisor Dr. Georgios Martinopoulos (Academic Associate) for his guidance and support during the dissertation work. The completion of the present dissertation has been co-funded through the project “ΙΚΥ Grants” from resources of the Operational Program “Education and Lifelong learning”, of the European Social Fund (ESF) of NSRF, 2007-2013.
