PREA is a joint project between four European Universities (London Metropolitan University, UK; University of La Rochelle, France; National and Kapodestrian University of Athens, Greece;

Dortmund University of Technology) and three African Universities (University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Uganda Martyrs University in Uganda, Witwatersrand University in South Africa), as well as the International Solar Energy Society (ISES), an international NGO, that promotes renewable energy. It aims at a joint development and implementation of coordinated Masters’ degree courses in this field that initializes the formation of a network of Southern African Higher Learning Institutions and links them with an already existing European network (TAREB) in which Dortmund University of Technology already participates together with six other European Higher Learning Institutions, three of which are also named above as participating in the PREA project. The Masters’ courses are to be preceded by, and later to run parallel with a series of Workshops, in order to sensitize African government policy makers, decision makers and implementers, regulatory agencies and senior members of academic institutions about energy efficiency (EE) and application of renewable energy technologies (RETs) in buildings, as a way of fighting poverty and saving the environment at the same time.

This project is running for three years, during which time it is expected to have established permanent structures in form of Masters’ courses at the three African universities, which are intended to continue even after expiry of the project period (December 2008).

SOLAIR partners started or plan to start co-operations with existing projects, programmes and partners at different levels as follows:

Intensive contacts have been established with the IEE funded projects Solar Combi+ and SOLCO.

Solar Combi+ focuses on accelerating the market entry of solar thermal systems for the application of small systems for combined heating and cooling. It will describe available solar cooling technology as well, which will also support the mapping of the technology on the market in SOLAIR. Moreover the project is very close to the market with the presence of numerous industrial partners of the solar cooling field. For training material development this has permitted to get and valorise very accurate information on the commercial offer for small scale combined solar heating & cooling applications. Thus, synergies have been possible and will be continued during the whole duration of the projects, considering also co-operation for dissemination activities. The consortium partners TECSOL, AEE INTEC, CRES and FhG-ISE are involved in this project as well.

The SOLCO project focuses on the removal of non-technological barriers for cooling technologies and chilling systems as well as on their promotion and implementation in Southern European insular areas. Contacts and exchanges during the development of training materials have been realised and will continue including possible common dissemination activities.

A regular information exchange of SOLAIR results is taking place with the Task 38 “Solar Air­Conditioning and Refrigeration” of the Solar Heating and Cooling Programme of the International Energy Agency. As information exchange platform, the regular expert meetings, held twice per

year in April and October until 2009, will be used, since some SOLAIR partners (FhG-ISE, AEE INTEC, INETI, TECSOL, POLIMI and Ambiente Italia) are involved in Task 38 as well.

2. Conclusion

The different participating partner organisations within SOLAIR are positive about the development potential of SAC technologies. Though local conditions and requirements differ, similar problems as well as positive considerations have been experienced.

The PV/Gen hybrid system is used to support various community facilities and utilities. The services have galvanized a positive attitude and the acceptance of PV electricity by the people in the village. PV based community outreach activities included establishment of a community center, community water supply, and a battery charging station.

Mats Ronnelid1* and Nicolas Estevez2

‘Solar Energy Research center SERC, Hogskolan Dalama, 78188, Borlange, Sweden

+46 23 778712, mrd@du. se

2SES Sustainable Energy Solutions AG. Basler Strasse 337, 4123 Allschwil / Basel, Switzerland

* Corresponding Author, mrd@du. se

Abstract

The purpose of the present work is to examine how much PV that can be installed in the Swedish electricity grid before occurrences of electricity production from PV exceeding the electricity consumption start to happen. This is important to know since the use of PV in the electricity grid can be assumed to increase rapidly in the next decades. If PV should have an important role in the future electricity mix, it is important to know how electricity production and electricity demand matches to be able to prepare that PV can have a significant share of the electricity production.

With the electricity demand profile of today, Sweden will face a problem with electricity overproduction when PV panel production accounts for about 9% of total yearly electricity demand. If other non-interruptible electricity sources like some hydro power, nuclear power and wind energy are taken into account, even less solar electricity can be produced within the Swedish electricity grid. Although this scenario might be over a decade away from happening it is important to look ahead now and make sure that our current practices and standards do not lead us into trouble in the future.

Keywords: Electricity grid, PV, overproduction

Laurentiu FARA1*, Silvian FARA2 and Ana-Maria DABIJA3,

Polytechnic University of Bucharest PUB, Bucharest, Romania
2Design and Research Institute for Automation — IPA SA, Bucharest, Romania
3Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism — UAUIM, Bucharest, Romania
* Corresponding Author, lfara@renerg. pub. ro

Abstract

The paper is based on a research national project (under work) focused on the promotion of new architectural concepts which include active solar systems (PV generators) and passive solar systems (lighting systems). The advantages of using the distributed solar architecture are more conspicuous in the case of large network-connected PV systems, such as the PV systems in the urban area, installed on the buildings facades or roofs. The major purpose of the project is to demonstrate the efficiency of integrating various PV elements in buildings, to test them and to make them known so that they can be used on a large scale.

To demonstrate this purpose, the new products will be installed on three pilot buildings (two in Bucharest and one in Timisoara) and the PV modules will be integrated in consonance with their architecture. One of them will be a historical building and the other two will be new buildings; they will have different typologies and they will be located in different areas. The estimated installed power for each building will be of approximately 1.000Wp, including some technologies with PV modules integrated in the architecture of the buildings.

Keywords: building integrated PV, distributed solar architecture, pilot buildings.

1. Introduction

The future large-scale utilization of renewable energies is a world-wide priority, which can not be neglected by anyone. Currently, the world photovoltaic market approaches maturity, being in a continuous process of expansion reaching an annual increase of over 30% after 2003. The main actors on the market are Japan with roughly 48%, EU with 25% and the USA with 13%. The second position of the EU is primarily due to the fact that it massively financed specific programmes for the development of this area. Germany, for instance, launched in January 1999 the programme for the installation of 100,000 PV roofs before 2004 with an installed power of 300 MW, the users being granted excellent incentives (Report of the European Commission: Energy End — Use Efficiency and Electricity Biomass, Wind and Photovoltaics in the European Union — EUR21297EN). In the Report “Status of Photovoltaics in the Newly Associates States” (2004) elaborated based on the European project PV-EC-NET continued with PV-NAS-NET (FP6), it is stipulated that “the promotion of renewable energy sources” is an absolute priority of the EU. This is based on the Kyoto Protocol referring to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and on the policy of security in the energy area.” The EU goal is to reach a production of energy from renewable sources of 21% of the electric energy consumption in 2010, compared with only 6% in 1998.

It is well known that the necessity to harmonise Romanian standards to the European ones, with precise goals regarding environmental degradation prevention (the Kyoto Protocol was ratified by the Parliament of Romania, Law no. 3/2001) and to promote sustainable development has determined the Government of Romania to qualify the importance of the promotion of renewable energy sources as “national objective” (art. 3, Government Decision (GD) no. 443/10.04.2003). The general objectives of the Strategy for the Utilisation of Renewable Energy Sources are stipulated by GD no. 1535/18.12.2003 and include

1

the integration of renewable energy sources into the public energy system and the attenuation of the technical-functional and psycho-social barriers related to the use of such energies; the identification of cost and energy efficiency elements; the promotion of private investments on the renewable energy market. The integration of PV systems into building facades and roofs determining a new form of electric power plant, i. e. the distributed electric power plant, is the market segment with the highest rise worldwide, considered as the most attractive for the future, [2-8].

„Solar Architecture” is a general term which implies the integration of photovoltaic system into classical building design. The key concept here is represented by the photovoltaic modules, which substitute some facade or roof components. For the design and construction of solar/PV systems it is necessary to have information about the solar energy collectable on tilted surfaces. In Romania, the meteorological stations have no such databases and do not perform such measurements. This means that the application of numerical methods is limited because of the lack of data resulted from specific meteorological-climate observation. Although in Romania the building market is rapidly developing, the building contractors do not promote PV technologies and new materials used for high performance day lighting, either because of their ignorance or their conservativeness, or the high costs related to importing such systems from the European market. Though during the last years more private companies in Romania offered to merchandise and install PV systems, one can not discuss of a proper PV market. Thus, in contrast to other EU states, in Romania there is no photovoltaic building construction branch, the limited number of isolated cases being not enough to argue the start if a photovoltaic market in the building industry.

In general, the design of such buildings one should pursue the optimization of the processes of dimensioning and orienting the surfaces on which the components collecting solar energy are to be placed in order to obtain a maximum of collected energy, satisfying at the same time the quality with regard to destination of the building, the designing and aesthetics rules. Therefore, the data regarding the solar energy collectable on tilted surfaces represent a vital prerequisite for architects and engineers who have to size the PV or thermosolar systems, for the specialists who have to elaborate feasibility studies associated to the implementation of solar installations.

Compared with other European countries, Romania has an above-average solar irradiation in the summer, comparable to the one of Greece, country in which the solar/photovoltaic technology is highly developed. Stand-alone private PV systems and the ones supplying energy also into the grid can be an attractive investment solution. A key element for the promotion of these renewable energy sources is the education for the sustainable development of the economic and social life of the population, especially young people, future inhabitants of houses designed and built using the new concepts of solar architecture. The effort to carry out a project of such a span requires human resources highly qualified in different areas of study such as urban architecture, the physics of photovoltaic devices, the physics of atmosphere (solar radiation), applied electronics (electrical measurement methods), data transmission, informatics, database administration.

1.1. Suppliers

The Power Purchase Agreement model and resulting scale has created not only new customers for traditional design/build solar companies, but also new markets for traditional construction companies wishing to expand into renewable energy. Mondial completes significant marketing activities on behalf of the industry, thus is able to present pre-qualified business opportunities to suppliers.

1.2. Energy Modelling

The focus on energy generated as a revenue source and vital part of the value chain has brought actual energy generation into even sharper focus than before. For example it is clear that there was some industry ignorance about actual domestic cold water temperature seasonal variation. Rising

summer temperatures result in significantly lower seasonal energy generation as cold water temperatures rise with ambient temperatures.

Fig. 2 — Seasonal variation in production due primarily to rising domestic cold water temperatures

Note that the graph under-estimates this impact with significantly lower ambient temperatures in May over July. Significantly modelling completed with the government’s own modelling software (RETScreen) appears to be under-reporting energy generation by as much as 25% compared with more sophisticated models. This indicates the level of accuracy prevalent in the industry.

Based on energy performance of electric equipments in the residential sector [7] performed by the Portuguese ministry of economy, two consumption and energy performance groups were defined: the business as usually (BAU) group that represents the appliances used by a typical family that neglects the energy efficiency issues and the BEST group that represents a family that takes care about the efficiency of their electric appliances (all of them are class A), and their responsible use.

The most efficient domestic laundry and dishwasher machines currently the market can receive preheated water from outside sources. Since 80-90% of the energy consumption of a washing machine results from heating the water with an electric resistance, there are considerable savings
when using a more efficient, preferably renewable, energy source to heat the water. In this study the washing machines used in the BEST group are replaced by machines fed with hot water from the solar thermal system. This represents savings around 80% (80% less than in Table 2) in the direct electricity needs on the washing machines. A standard laundry washing program requires temperatures around 40aC, for dishwashing, 40-50°C.

One of the visits planed was to the one laboratory of the Engineering University (ETSII) of Valladolid, where can be seen different kind of solar collectors as well as cooling equipments. There were 19 attendants and the length of the visit was 1,5 hours

The technical visit was focused on solar thermal and solar cooling systems. The visit took place at the school of industrial engineering at the University of Valladolid. There were various solar thermal systems.

Students of the training course n° 2, engineers, technicians and professionals who were interested in solar energy systems, mainly composed the real audience of this visit.

For most of them the visit was a perfect complement for this training course. All in general were very interested in the visit.

Other visits have been made to facilities of a public heated swimming pool or a building of offices. Those visits were aimed at engineers, architects and professionals in the renewable energy sector.

Scottish Solar Energy Group, 31 Temple Village, Midlothian, Scotland
EH23 4SQ. Tel +1871 830 271 email: kerr@macgregorsolar. com

Abstract

This paper describes the rationale, conception and execution of a unique initiative to take solar energy into the community of Scotland. A mobile van fitted out with renewable energy equipment was prepared. It includes solar thermal, PV, small wind and bio-diesel technology. It is designed to be lived in and acquires all its energy from renewables. It is operated on behalf of the Scottish Solar Energy Group and has visited over 200 schools and 50 community events throughout Scotland over the last two years. Supported by commercial firms and voluntary organisations and the Scottish government, it is now self sufficient financially and is judged a great success in taking renewables into the community.

1. Introduction

The Scottish Solar Energy Group is the main solar energy body in Scotland. The group recognised that one of the main barriers to implementing solar energy was the widespread ignorance among the public regarding the technology. It was decided that the best way of combating that was to develop a mobile demonstration of renewables which could into the community, especially schools. That demonstration became SOLAR ONE.

This literally means curtailment of wastage, utilization of low power-consuming devices and adoption of alternative form of energy sources (non-conventional) suitable to climatic conditions. Electrical energy is utilizes in buildings in different forms like lighting ventilation, water pumping, air — conditioners and other domestic items. In all these optimization of energy consumption supplements achievement of energy conservation. Implementation of innovative strategies like sustainable architectural designs, automation and building management system, geothermal system and roof top chillers will control and reduce energy consumption levels.

3. Silent features of Universal Home

The house is designed on the principles of sustainable resources.

The design of the house is to conserve natural resources and to have minimal impact on the environment. In the design, built-in, customized environment-friendly, zero electricity refrigerators, and built-in energy efficient lights are among the features that help to bring down energy consumption in the home while ensuring comfort levels. The house design the materials are selected, to drastically reducing the carbon emissions in the whole life cycle of the building (construction, actual life and destruction) without compromising on the high-energy life style of the inhabitants. The house design has been worked out towards achieving this collective goal, by addressing the following six main areas: