Solar hot water heating system analysis using different software in single family house

Abstract

Nowadays the main challenges and principles to increase energy efficiency in the buildings sector are: a very high energy performance of buildings, a significant extent of renewable energy sources and a minimum use of fossil fuels. Therefore, a wide variety of the software is used to analyze the building energy performance, integration of renewable energy into various energy systems. This paper presents the comparison of simulation results generated by TRNSYS, Polysun and energyPRO software. These applications have been used for the analysis of a solar water heating system for the domestic hot water (DHW) preparation. A single family individual house, located in the cold climate, has been chosen as a case study. The building energy demand for the DHW preparation has been analyzed. The results show differences in total annual and monthly solar fraction for the DHW coverage, the heat losses of a storage tank and the energy demand from an auxiliary heat source. This study presents that simulation results using TRNSYS and Polysun can be considered as more reliable that results of energyPRO simulation.