Development of a bio-solar house model for Egyptian conditions

Abstract

The need for heating and cooling in traditional housing is becoming increasingly disadvantageous regarding high energy costs. But what is more concerning is the impact on our environment. The main goal of this paper is studying the prospects of using renewable energy for heating and cooling houses through an integrated bio-solar system in order to solve the energy scarcity problem. For this purpose, a simulation model for a bio-solar house made from different materials (walls made of bricks with straw bales and a roof made of concrete with straw bales) was developed successively in accordance with the energy balance and renewable energies such as biogas and solar energy were applied. This approach enabled an enhancement of the main factors affecting the performance of a building in terms of saving energy. The model was able to predict the energy requirements for heating and cooling of houses, the energy gained by a solar collector and by a biogas digester as well as the energy requirement for heating the biogas digester. Also, the purpose of this paper is to validate this developed simulation model by measuring energy requirements for heating of houses and solar radiation for solar collectors. The model is a simulation model for the bio-solar house with its three main parts-a straw house, a solar collector and a biogas digester. This paper demonstrates the values of the performed measurements and compares them to the theoretical, predicted values. The comparison indicates that the predicted energy requirements for the heating of buildings were a close approximation to the measured values. Another relevant deduction of the validation was the fact that the solar collector delivered the highest heat gain on 21st of June.