Objective 1: Retrofitting design planner tool
Our overall approach is based on a retrofitting tool kit composed by a number of measures that could be integrated tackling the following building demands: space heating and cooling, and domestic hot water. A retrofit planner will allow choosing the combination of retrofitting measures that best fit in each building from the energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness point of view. Particularly, Heat4Cool project wants to reduce energy consumption in the residential building stock by means of a sum of energy efficient actions. The aim of the sum of measures is to increase 30% the overall energy efficiency in the residential building stock.
Data from the characteristics of the existing residential building stock, regulations, non-technical issues will be complemented with energy and economic analysis in order to have a multidisciplinary tool that will be used for cost-effective retrofitting assessment. This reliable design tool will model and simulate the integration of heating and cooling technologies, renewable energies and waste heat recovery systems supported by a SCI-BEMS to maximize the overall performance of the cost effective, practical and affordable retrofitting solution.
Objective 2: Integration of Heating and Cooling solution
The optimization of the heating and cooling system for each building. The two main solutions that will be developed and evaluated in the project will be the Solar Assisted Thermal Driven Adsorption Heat Pump (AdHP) and the Solar assisted DC powered HP with advanced heat storage in phase change materials (PCM). Adsorption heat pumps supplied with heated water through solar collectors have received a lot of attention due to the high energy prices and environmental concerns. The AdHP will use the natural gas installation in order to improve the integrability of this equipment in existing buildings. The solution will match effectively the heating demand will additionally provide a compacted solution to meet the cooling demand of the building.
RES coupled with DCHP and PCM heat storage will be of paramount importance for increasing the penetration of low carbon sources of energy into the heating and cooling markets. In fact, DCHPs Today are mainly used to adapt the energy consumption to the required load. This does not take into account the electricity source, particularly important in case of highly variable loads from PV panels. The addition of thermal storage would decouple the heat generation phase from the heat consumption phase. The same DC inverter technology could therefore be used to couple the HP to the solar PV source to convert the available electric load into heat in real time. Any heat generated is then loaded into the PCM storage that is sized in order to satisfy any heating requirements from the building.
Different mathematical models of various degrees of complexities will be developed for the design and optimization of the integrated solution. The mathematical models will take into account mass-energy balances, heat transfer equations and the dynamics of indoor environmental conditions due to spatio-temporal variations.
Objective 3: Wastewater heat recovery
The wastewater retains a significant portion of its initial energy that could be recovered and used every day. In Heat4Cool project one of the main objectives is to harvest energy from wastewater of block of buildings with integrated high performance and cost effective heat recovery technology. The recovered waste heat assists the AdHP and the DC powered Heat Pump in order to optimize their performances and reach values of 150% (GUE) and 5 (COP), respectively.
The main problem that happens when the heat exchangers are installed in the sewage pipe is the formation of biofilm on the wall of the heat exchanger. The biofilm leads to a reduction of the efficiency of the heat exchange. Joint efforts will be dedicated to the improvement and development of new heat exchanger and relate system components to achieve the goal. The technical development of cleaning devices and/or special surface will be researched in order to find suitable ways of improving its thermal efficiency to reduce cost and required m2 of surface.
Objective 4: Self-Correcting Intelligent Building Energy Management System (SCI-BEMS)
A closer interaction between building monitoring, weather forecast, demand-response supply and control of HVAC and water heating can save an important amount of energy in residential buildings. The Self-Correcting Intelligent Building Energy Management System (SCI-BEMS) will not only activate the HVAC systems to fulfil the user comfort requirements through integrated strategies for minimum energy usage as well as offering services to the grid – Demand Side Management.
Heat4Cool addresses the integration of the energy production and distribution at district level in the most Energy Efficient Operation Strategy. The project aims at developing a new concept of intelligent multi-autonomous heat/cool supply management system and real-time feedback/regulation functionalities, which will allow controlling efficiently instantaneous heat/cool generation in function of the effective demand of each block of flats.
From the occupants’ perspective, Heat4Cool introduces innovative user comfort and demand behaviour models that will be integrated into the SCI-BEMS. Accurate profiles will enable the introduction of occupants’ ambient preferences in any optimization process. The development of dynamic thermal comfort models will allow (by the appropriate adjustments of heating/cooling loads) to achieve highly comfortable indoor environments and optimal energy consumption.
Objective 5: Demonstrate and validate the market oriented heating and cooling solution
The project will implement four benchmark retrofitting projects in four different European climates to achieve a reduction of at least 30% in energy consumption in a technically, socially, and financially feasible manner and demonstrate a return on investment of less than 6 years. In the Impact we show that without funding a very attractive ROI is achievable. The Heat4Cool widely applicable retrofitting solution will be validated in four real demo sites through a complete quantitative assessment to demonstrate how European building stock can be transformed with energy and cost efficiency criteria. The demonstration of the Heat4Cool project concept will promote the public and private investment in Energy Efficient Refurbishment projects in residential buildings
The Heat4Cool consortium will ensure the maximum replication potential of the Heat4Cool solution by a continuous monitoring of technical and economic barriers during the development and validation phases in order to present the building owners and investors with clear energy and economic evidence of the value of implementing Heat4Cool solution. A detailed business plan will be developed in the beginning of the project to strengthen the explo