Pierre-Luc Paradis

Economic and energy analysis of domestic ground source heat pump systems in four Canadian cities

This study provides an economic and energy analysis of the implementation of geothermal systems to meet the needs of a typical 130 m2 dwelling of a Canadian individual. The objective is to determine the monetary balance after 22 years, the net present value, the internal return rate, and annual savings for the same system operating under different climatic conditions and in different provinces (legislations, costs of fuel) to determine whether or not an individual should implement such a system in 2014. The geothermal system is used for both space heating and cooling, and to provide for 25% of the total amount of domestic hot water. The simulations are performed with RETScreen® for four Canadian cities: Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. For the investigated configurations, it appeared that the cost of energy and its sources, which varied greatly according to the location, are the factors that most strongly influenced the economic viability of the proposed geothermal system, while climate was only...

Mathematical Modeling of Dual Intake Transparent Transpired Solar Collector

Nowadays, in several types of commercial or institutional buildings, a significant rise of transpired solar collectors used to preheat the fresh air of the building can be observed. Nevertheless, when the air mass flow rate is low, the collector efficiency collapses and a large amount of energy remains unused. This paper presents a simple yet effective mathematical model of a transparent transpired solar collector (TTC) with dual intake in order to remove stagnation problems in the plenum and ensure a better thermal efficiency and more heat recovery. A thermal model and a pressure loss model were developed. Then, the combined model was validated with experimental data from the Solar Rating and Certification Corporation (SRCC). The results show that the collector efficiency can be up to 70% and even 80% regardless of operating conditions. The temperature gain is able to reach 20°K when the solar irradiation is high.