• Energy Research

Abstract Research on building-integrated solar thermal collectors is attracting increasingly more interest. Many efforts have been focused at the design level for obtaining specific building-orientated products, but there is a significant lack of standardised methods for evaluating how the efficiency of solar collectors changes when a wall is an integral part of the solar component itself. Generally speaking, experimental tests on integrated components are not easy to realise and are, in any case, expensive in terms of time and money. Physical and numerical methods can be utilised, but at the moment, there is no common approach. The present work addresses a method for the calculation of a building-integrated component performance curve by means of a finite element method model. The main idea is to exploit data measured for a simpler and non-integrated component, which are readily available, for validating and calibrating a more complex model in which the system is coupled with a building element. Simulation assumptions and outputs are designed to comply with the main standards utilised for defining solar collector performance curves. The proposed method proves that it may be a good way to assess the performance curves of building-integrated solar thermal collectors and that it is suitable for reducing test costs. The authors have also highlighted the measures that must be taken for the sample collector to better fit the BIST performance model.

The work presents the results of a study regarding the impact of some Demand Response control logics on an isolated distribution network. The proposed control is divided into precise steps in which the coordination between the general aggregator controller and the single local Energy Management Systems is developed and illustrated with details. The control is applied to the flexible loads and to the storage systems of photovoltaic plants installed at the end-users' houses and connected to the network. The study is carried out delivering a suitable network model of the island's system, with the implementation of load profiles for all the loads of the network for a total simulation time of 24 hours. Different scenarios are examined, in order to assess the impact of the DR control actions on the network.

The aim of this work is to compare the performance of a daylight-linked control system installed and tested in two different case studies by means of a set of indices. The two case studies are characterized by different geometry, location and windows orientation. The first one is located at the ENEA premises in Lampedusa (IT, 35° 30' N); the second one is located in Palermo (IT, 38°6' N) on the third floor of the building 9 of the Department of Engineering if the University of Palermo. In both cases, the indices were calculated by using the same daylight-linked control system and the same end-use (office). The results were reported and analysed in order to demonstrate as the performances of the control system can be different from the ideal performance and that they can be different according to the installation. Furthermore, according to the first outcomes, it results that a detailed analysis of the space before the installation of the control system is a necessary practice.

The paper presents a study on the opportunities offered by ICT for improving the efficiency of the generation and distribution system of a small island. The island taken into consideration is the Italian Lampedusa island. In the paper, the power distribution system of the island is described and the summer and winter daily load profiles are examined in order to define the more suitable control actions for improving the generation and distribution efficiency of the power system. Finally the architecture of an idoneous control system for the smart grid is proposed and an evaluation of the purchase and installation costs of components and devices for the transition of a traditional house towards a smart house is presented.