| dc.description.abstract | An energy performance study of a novel solar thermal-powered heating, cooling, and hot water system, integrated with a latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) system and applied in cities in different climate zones (or regions) across the United States, is conducted. A mathematical model was developed and simulated using MATLAB to determine energy demands with and without the LHTES system in all seven climate zones. Seven cities were selected in seven different U.S. climate zones. For each city, the daily building energy demand, daily global horizontal index (GHI), solar collector area, and thermal energy storage size were calculated. To evaluate the capabilities and benefits of the LHTES system, the annual building energy with and without solar collector and thermal energy storage, energy cost, building energy savings per unit PCM mass of thermal energy storage, building energy savings per unit area of the collector and solar energy utilization ratio was calculated. Results show that the LHTES system is capable of reducing energy demand for residential buildings in all the seven climate zones; however, the system is more beneficial in warmer climate zones than in colder climate zones. In warmer climate zones, the equipment sizes are smaller, the annual energy savings per unit mass of thermal energy storage is larger, energy savings per unit area, energy cost savings, and solar energy utilization ratio are higher than in colder climate zones indicating that LHTES system are more beneficial in warmer climate zones than in colder climate zones. Nevertheless, further research should be conducted to carefully investigate the capital cost and affordability of the system to initiate the deployment of the LHTES system in the HVAC industry. | en_US |
