Frontiers of Architectural Research >

2012 , Vol. 1 >Issue 4: 326 - 333

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2012.09.003

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems for industrial halls: Achieving economic benefit via lowering energy demand

  • Bruno Lee , 1,2 ,
  • Marija Trcka 2 ,
  • Jan L.M. Hensen 2
Expand
  • 1. Materials innovation institute(M2i), Delft 2628,The Netherlands
  • 2. Department of the Built Environment, Eindhoven University of Technology(TU/e), Eindhoven 5612 AZ, The Netherlands

Received date: 19 Sep 2012

Accepted date: 24 Sep 2012

Published date: 05 Dec 2012

Copyright

2014 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Fold

Abstract

Industrial halls are characterized with their relatively high roof-to-floor ratio, which facilitates ready deployment of renewable energy generation, such as photovoltaic (PV) systems, on the rooftop. To promote deployment of renewable energy generation, feed-in tariff (FIT) higher than the electricity rate is available in many countries to subsidize the capital investment. FIT comes in different forms. For net FIT, in order to maximize the economic benefit, surplus electricity generation at each hour is desirable.

One way to achieve surplus electricity generation is by increasing generation capacity, which is synonymous to higher capital investment. In fact, surplus electricity generation can also be achieved by lowering the energy demand of the building. This particularly the case for industrial halls, which are usually subject to high energy demand for space conditioning in order to remove the excess heat gain due to the many power-intensive processes.

Building energy performance simulation tools can be used to explore the different building design options that could lower the energy demand. In this paper, single-objective optimization on investment return will be deployed to study the cost effectiveness among different options in lowering energy demand. It will be demonstrated with a case study of a warehouse.

Key words： Industrial halls; Photovoltaic; PV systems; Cost–benefit analysis; Energy performance simulation; Optimization; Energy demand

Cite this article

Bruno Lee , Marija Trcka , Jan L.M. Hensen . Rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems for industrial halls: Achieving economic benefit via lowering energy demand[J]. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2012 , 1(4) : 326 -333 . DOI: 10.1016/j.foar.2012.09.003

Options
Outlines

/

〈 〉