A new and inexpensive open source data acquisition and controller for solar research: Application to a water-flow glazing

Luis J. Claros-Marfil, J. Francisco Padial and Benito Lauret

Renewable Energy, 2016, vol. 92, issue C, 450-461

Abstract: A water-flow window consists of two glass panes making up a chamber in which a water layer flows in a controlled way. Such windows may be considered as Building-Integrated Solar Thermal (BIST) collectors, and could assist to incorporate renewable energy systems in buildings, improving their energy efficiency, especially when they are properly managed by a control system. Despite the need of an automatic controller for this kind of window and the advantages of microprocessor-based control for solar systems, only differential controllers have been described. A novel controller based on an inexpensive open source microcontroller board has been designed, built, programmed and installed in an experimental prototype water-flow window. The proposed data acquisition and control system, the code sequence steps, a model algorithm, and a comparison between the data collected by the system and a commercial datalogger are presented. The advantages of using an open source board for the proposed control system are analysed and the benefits of using a control system based on a microcontroller are discussed.

Keywords: Water-flow window; Building-integrated solar thermal (BIST) systems; Arduino; Microcontoller; Open source; Smart windows (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:92:y:2016:i:c:p:450-461

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2016.02.037

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