Solar Energy

This paper analyses the energy and economic performance of roof and/or façades Building Integrated flat-plate PhotoVoltaic and Thermal (BIPVT) collectors for residential applications. Aim of the analysis is to assess the active and passive effects due to the building integration of solar technologies on the building energy consumptions. In particular, a comparison among innovative building-plant system configurations, based on BIPVT collectors for the simultaneous production of electricity, thermal energy, and domestic hot water, is carried out. The simulation models of the proposed system layouts are designed and implemented in TRNSYS simulation environment for the dynamic assessment of their energy and economic performance. By means of the developed simulation model, the occurring summer and winter building passive energy effects due to the PVT building integration are also analysed.
Several case studies are developed by modelling a representative multi-storey residential building and by taking into account different European climates. For such case studies a suitable energy parametric analysis is performed by varying the thermal resistances and capacitances of the building envelope. By the simulation results interesting design and economic feasibility guidelines are obtained. In particular, by varying the weather location and the building-plant configuration, the adoption of BIPVT panels produces a decrease of the primary energy demands from 67 to 89%. The passive effects of the BIPVT system in both the winter and summer season are also assessed for all the investigated climate zones. The calculated economic profitability resulted slightly better for roof BIPVT panels than for roof and façade applications. For the investigated case studies, the pay back periods appear quite long, varying from 11 years for South European weather zones to 20 for North European ones.

Myanmar is blessed with the enormous potential of Eco-friendly Renewable Energy resources. Hence, it is encouraging more and more generation of these not only for the improvement of the electrification rate but also for the development of Low-Carbon society.
This research work focuses on the techno-economic analysis of the Floating Solar Photovoltaic (PV)-Hydro Grid-tied Hybrid System. It is intended to contribute in Myanmar Agenda 2030: National Electrification Planning
towards Universal Access. Moreover, it is in line with the Goal No. 7 of the world’s SDGs. The philosophy of this research is to harvest the different Energies in one location as well as to investigate the impact of the
integration of Floating Solar PV System at the conventional Hydropower Dam. The project area is located in the Shan State Plateau and belongs to the middle and high mountain terrain in Myanmar. The Nam Pai River is a tributary of the east bank of Ayeyarwady River Basin, with a total length of 229 km. Nam Pai River was studied as the Cascade Hydropower Project and regarded as the Nam Pai-1 (Upper), Nam Pai-2 (Middle), and Nam Pai-3 (Lower) plants. Nam Pai-1 and Nam Pai-2 are pure run-off river type. Nam Pai-3 is the Dam type with regulating pondage function and thus, it is considered for the installation of the proposed System. The design capacity of the Nam Pai-3 Hydropower is 30 MW and the additional power is generated from the Floating Solar PV System. The proposed system can cover the regional supply and the excess Electrical Energy will be sold to the National Grid System of Myanmar.

The contribution of sun to meet human energy demand is substantial. Instead of its importance in fulfilling energy demand it shares just 1% of total energy consumption compared to that of 85% share of oil, natural gas, and coal. The fossil fuel will not remain as the dominant source of energy as it has precise timetable for its depletion. For long-term, sustainable energy resources like solar power offers an attractive choice to meet the growing energy demand without affecting the environment. But there are also major challenges of using the solar energy with high efficiency. Certain engineering innovations are required for capturing sun’s energy and converting it to usable form. Traditional solar cell has maximum efficiency limit of about 31%, we can exceed this limit by employing new technologies like nano-antenna and organic solar cell. We can use solar energy not only to produce electricity but for other purposes like cooling and lightning of buildings through smart windows and for the purification of air and water through photo-catalytic oxidation. In this paper the authors are going to discuss about various technique to harness solar energy.