Program 1: Integrated Building Systems
Space heating and cooling, with solar or geothermal heat, can substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions in existing homes. A number of Australian companies have cost-effective commercial products and there are new innovations awaiting commercialisation. However, information barriers and skills gaps are reducing commercial uptake of these innovations. One key barrier is that there is no independent means to readily evaluate the performance of renewable heating and cooling technology. Consequently it is not possible to include it as an eligible technology in market support schemes such as the Renewable Energy Target meaning the technology is not able to receive the market support available to other renewable technologies and to compete with high emissions heating and cooling alternatives.
This project aims to address barriers to renewable heating and cooling technology and stimulate market demand. This will be achieved through:
- development of design guides, tools and databases
- industry training and knowledge dissemination
- participation in International Energy Agency market support activities, and
- through the development of a world first solar heating and cooling technical standard for evaluating energy savings to underpin eligibility status in tradeable certificate markets.
Program
Project leader
Dr Stephen White, CSIRO
Project status
Complete
Project period
12/2013 to 01/2016
- Publications
- Posters
Peer reviewed research publications
RP1008: Journal Article: A component testing system simulation (CTSS) method for characterizing solar air-conditioner performance
Solar desiccant air-conditioning is an emerging technology that offers the promise of reducing reliance on grid connected electricity for providing comfort air-conditioning. Development of a method of assessing the seasonal energy savings of these devices would enable a fair comparison with alternative devices. This could be used in policy support mechanisms to assist industry growth.
Here the authors describe the application of the Component Testing System Simulation method to predict the energy savings of solar air-conditioners using the same approach as that applied successfully in the Australian solar hot water industry. The CTSS approach is made possible by the development of a new simplified generic model of the desiccant air-conditioner component. The performance of the generic model is evaluated for five different air-conditioner designs. The results suggest that the approach is valid for estimating the annual energy savings. The method will be documented in a provisional Australian Standard to be released in 2013.
RP1008: Development of a solar air-conditioning Australian Standard
Conference paper presented at the Australian Solar Cooling 2013 Conference, Sydney 2013
CRCLCL Project Posters
Research Snapshot Poster - RP1008
Research Snapshot A3 size poster from Participants Annual Forum 2014