A new control strategy for the exploitation of solar energy

Abstract

The total heating and cooling demand in the context of building operations makes up an important share of the overall worldwide energy consumption. Thus efforts have been made to increase the amount of renewable energy like solar radiation. One of the means to reach this goal is to accumulate the energy emitted via solar radiation within thermal mass. An effective means to raise thermal mass is to add buffer tanks next to or inside a building. The costs of these buffer tanks and the space they use grow with the size of the tanks. Thus the tanks are to be kept as small as possible. This is where the paper outlines an alternative way to exploit existing thermal mass the best possible way. It demonstrates a new method to increase the accumulation of energy within thermal mass rather by overheating heavy construction elements than by raising the size of water storage tanks.