Simplified Method of Optimal Sizing of a Renewable Energy Hybrid System for Schools

Jiyeon Kim and Eui-Jong Kim
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Jiyeon Kim: Green Building Center, Korea Appraisal Board, Seoul 06225, Korea
Eui-Jong Kim: Department of Architectural Engineering, Inha University, Incheon 22212, Korea

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 11, 1-16

Abstract: Schools are a suitable public building for renewable energy systems. Renewable energy hybrid systems (REHSs) have recently been introduced in schools following a new national regulation that mandates renewable energy utilization. An REHS combines the common renewable-energy sources such as geothermal heat pumps, solar collectors for water heating, and photovoltaic systems with conventional energy systems (i.e., boilers and air-source heat pumps). Optimal design of an REHS by adequate sizing is not a trivial task because it usually requires intensive work including detailed simulation and demand/supply analysis. This type of simulation-based approach for optimization is difficult to implement in practice. To address this, this paper proposes simplified sizing equations for renewable-energy systems of REHSs. A conventional optimization process is used to calculate the optimal combinations of an REHS for cases of different numbers of classrooms and budgets. On the basis of the results, simplified sizing equations that use only the number of classrooms as the input are proposed by regression analysis. A verification test was carried out using an initial conventional optimization process. The results show that the simplified sizing equations predict similar sizing results to the initial process, consequently showing similar capital costs within a 2% error.

Keywords: renewable energy; hybrid energy system; optimization; simplified sizing method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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