Sunliang Cao

Energy and exergy analysis of prosumers in hybrid energy grids

ABSTRACT Surplus energy can be a recurrent phenomenon in zero-energy buildings (ZEBs) with onsite generation systems, usually resulting in the export of excess electricity. Yet, converting electricity into heat and exporting it could improve the overall energy balance. This study analyses the energy and exergy performance of a Finnish nearly zero-energy building (nZEB) as a heat and electricity prosumer, and proposes alternative energy topologies to improve energy and exergy levels, primary energy demand and CO2 emissions. The results show that increasing the installed capacity of the photovoltaic systems would lead to zero energy, exergy, emissions and a balance of primary energy. However, by instead using the surplus electricity to drive a heat pump and export heat, the currently installed capacity would lead to a net energy export of over 4000 kWh/a. Thus, energy conversion could significantly enhance the contribution from heat and electricity prosumers to smart energy grids, though not without affecting other criteria. Two management strategies arise: favouring heat export improves the net energy and CO2 emissions reduction but lessens the net exergy, while favouring electricity export improves the net exergy and primary energy reduction. The findings highlight that energy conversion can enhance nZEB performance and its exchange with hybrid grids.

The influence of simulation time-resolution on the matching between on-site micro-wind generation and building electric demand

This paper is to investigate the unique impact of simulation time-resolutions on energy matching between on-site micro-wind turbine and household electric demand. The focused indices are on-site electrical energy fraction (OEFe), on-site electrical energy matching (OEMe), and their errors (eOEF and eOEM). The methodology consists of parametric analyses with respect to time-resolution levels, averaging methods, demand profiles, turbine capacities, and wind conditions. Two averaging methods are used: ‘Speed Averaging’ and ‘Power Averaging’. With a coarser resolution, two averaging effects have been found. One is an overestimation effect by both the averaging methods, which are more likely to be encountered especially when a high-resolution generation curve frequently crosses intermittent long spikes of a demand curve. The other effect is an underestimation effect on OEFe simultaneously occurring with the Speed Averaging Method under the conditions of (1) a low wind speed and (2) a high unstable wind speed and a low turbine capacity.