Life-cycle cost optimization of a solar combisystem for residential buildings in Nepal

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Wang, W., Thapa, B., & Williams, W. (2021). Life-cycle cost optimization of a solar combisystem for residential buildings in Nepal. Journal Of Asian Architecture And Building Engineering. https://doi.org/doi:10.1080/13467581.2021.1928502
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Description

Current solar thermal systems used in Nepal are mostly for domestic hot water heating. Meanwhile, there is a growing need for space heating. A solar heating system can be configured to provide heat for both space heating and domestic hot water, leading to a solar combisystem. Research on residential solar combisystems in the Nepalean context barely exists in literature. This paper intends to propose, model and optimize a solar combisystem for typical single-family houses in Nepal. The optimization problem is formulated to have life-cycle cost as the objective function and a total of 11 variables, which are related to the sizing of combisystem components and the insulation thickness of building envelope. The number of hours not satisfying the thermostat heating set point is treated as the constraint. TRNSYS is used for modeling the solar combisystem. Particle Swarm optimization and the Hooke-Jeeves algorithm implemented in GenOpt are sequentially applied to solve the optimization problem. The results show that the optimization is effective to reduce the life-cycle cost by 66% for the Terai region and 77% for the Hilli region. The findings have demonstrated the importance of building envelope insulation to spread the use of solar combisystems in Nepal.

Details
Title

Life-cycle cost optimization of a solar combisystem for residential buildings in Nepal

Author(s)

Wang, Weimin
Thapa, Bishan
Williams, Wesley

UNC Charlotte Affiliate Type

Faculty

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Extent

1 online resource

Date Published

2021

Material Type

Journal article

Genre

articles

Resource Type

text

Abstract

Current solar thermal systems used in Nepal are mostly for domestic hot water heating. Meanwhile, there is a growing need for space heating. A solar heating system can be configured to provide heat for both space heating and domestic hot water, leading to a solar combisystem. Research on residential solar combisystems in the Nepalean context barely exists in literature. This paper intends to propose, model and optimize a solar combisystem for typical single-family houses in Nepal. The optimization problem is formulated to have life-cycle cost as the objective function and a total of 11 variables, which are related to the sizing of combisystem components and the insulation thickness of building envelope. The number of hours not satisfying the thermostat heating set point is treated as the constraint. TRNSYS is used for modeling the solar combisystem. Particle Swarm optimization and the Hooke-Jeeves algorithm implemented in GenOpt are sequentially applied to solve the optimization problem. The results show that the optimization is effective to reduce the life-cycle cost by 66% for the Terai region and 77% for the Hilli region. The findings have demonstrated the importance of building envelope insulation to spread the use of solar combisystems in Nepal.

Subjects--Topics

Solar thermal energy
Dwellings
Nepal
Buildings--Environmental engineering

Is Part Of

Journal of Asian architecture and building engineering

Language

English

Published Version (Please cite this version)

doi:10.1080/13467581.2021.1928502

Publisher's Version

https://doi.org/10.1080/13467581.2021.1928502

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/work:231

Rights

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