Energy Performance of a Solar Greenhouse Used as Heat Source in Ventilation Systems

¹ FCT – Universidade do Algarve, Faro, Portugal
² Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisboa, Portugal
³ CINTAL – Universidade do Algarve, Faro, Portugal
⁴ University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom

^* Corresponding author: econcei@ualg.pt

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical study on the energy performance of a solar greenhouse used as a heat source in a ventilation system applied in a virtual house. This work, developed in winter conditions, uses a greenhouse and a ventilation system as heating ventilation system. The greenhouse, used to heating the air, is built with a group of glasses turned to East, South and West, placed above the roof, and the ventilation system, built with two groups of ducts, one used to transport the warm air to spaces turned to north and other used to free cooling to spaces turned south. This numerical simulation uses a software, developed by the authors, that simulates the Building Thermal Modelling and evaluates the building internal environment variables, building bodies temperatures, building contaminants concentrations, thermal comfort, energy consumptions, among others. The study, with and without the greenhouse, evaluates the energy production and transport, the internal temperature and thermal comfort to which the occupants are exposed, in transient conditions, during all day. Without the greenhouse system, in spaces with south-facing windows, the thermal conditions are uncomfortable by positive PMV (Predicted Mean Votes) index values, while in spaces with north-facing windows the thermal conditions are uncomfortable due to positive values of the PMV index. Using the greenhouse and the ventilation strategies, all spaces during the occupation are thermal comfortable.