Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Economic and Environmental Analysis
Some research achievements focused on economic and environmental analysis
of the PV/T technology by comparing its performance against those for individ-
ually arranged PV and solar thermal technologies. In terms of economic issues,
simple payback time and LCC were addressed taking into account primary fossil
fuel energy saving and increase in capital cost and maintenance cost needed during
the system operation. In terms of environmental issues, energy and exergy effi-
ciencies of the system, EPBT and greenhouse gas payback time were calculated
and used as the indexes to justify the benefits of the system in terms of the capacity
of carbon emission cut.
Achievements of economic and environmental analysis cover (1) PV/T energy
saving potential, its cost augment, estimated payback time and LCC saving
(Tripanagnostopoulos et al.
2005
); (2) PV/T EPBT and greenhouse gas payback
time and their relevance with the system's energy and exergy efficiencies
(Tripanagnostopoulos et al.
2005
); and (3) comparison between different PV/T
configurations, PV alone, solar thermal alone and separately laid PV and solar
thermal arrangements (Zondag et al.
1999
).
In summary, economic and environmental analysis works done so far are
adequate to indicate the performance of the PV/T technology in terms of its
economic and carbon benefits. The further work may be extended to long-term
(seasonal and annual) analysis of the system's performance by taking into account
the influence of the climatic conditions to the system performance.
Demonstration of the PV/T Technology and Associated Feasibility Study
Although PV/T technology has been used in many practical projects, there are very
little report found by literature search to focus on assessing the long-term per-
formance of PV/T technology under real climatic conditions, and consequently,
feasibility of the system used in practical projects as a long-term measure has not
yet been fully studied. This may be the area to be further explored in near future in
relation to the PV/T technology development.
3.3.3 Summary of the PV/T Research Achievements
The established researches so far in PV/T technology are very substantial and have
clear focuses on (1) revealing the nature of the energy transfer and conversation
occurring in the PV/T modules and module-based system; (2) identifying the
favourite system type; (3) optimising the structural/geometrical parameters of
the systems and suggesting the appropriate operational conditions; (4) building the
link between the theoretical analysis and practical application; and (5) analysing
the economic and environmental benefits of the PV/T systems and studying their
feasibility for long-term operation. All these efforts contribute to a single purpose,
to create as much energy-efficient PV/T system as possible at the least possible
cost and simplest structure.
