Innovative solar technologies and energy efficiency solutions for buildings: modelling and experimental analyses

This Ph.D. thesis presents and discusses the results of the research developed in the field of innovative solar technologies and building energy efficiency solutions and conducted with the twofold aim to propose novel solutions and modelling techniques, also based on experimental investigations. Buildings are responsible for the highest share of final primary energy consumptions in advanced countries and the majority of energy is for heating, cooling, and ventilation needs, necessary to provides indoor thermal comfort to occupants. For such a reason, several innovative technologies and strategies have been deeply studied in the present work of thesis with the dual purpose of reducing buildings energy consumption while keeping unaltered (or even enhancing) the indoor thermal comfort perception of occupants. Economic and environmental aspects have been investigated as well. Among the active and passive possible solutions to be adopted in buildings, those examined in this Ph.D. thesis are considered the most promising ones in term of energy saving potential and feasibility, they are: i) Building Integrated Phase Change Materials (BIPCM); ii) Building Integrated Solar Thermal Collectors (BISTSs); iii) Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV); iv) Building Integrated Photovoltaic/Thermal (BIPVT); vi) Novel Integrated Collector Storage Solar Water Heating (ICSSWH) prototype The adopted methodology to analyze such technologies comprises both experimental and simulative approaches. Specifically, each proposed system has been experimentally tested and the acquired data are adopted to validate the associated dynamic simulation model, purposely developed to investigate the system performance under different boundary and operating conditions. The majority of these models are then applied to a previously developed Building Energy Performance Simulation (BEPS) tool, whose reliability has been further investigated by means of a purposely conceived experimental campaign carried out on a real test cell. Finally, from all the carried-out analyses, several interesting results by the energy, economic and environmental point of views are achieved and discussed hereinafter with the aim to provide useful design criteria.