Evaluation of renewable energy technologies in a net zero energy office building in Germany

Abstract

Besides increasing requirements for the thermal insulation of buildings, renewable energy sources as photovoltaic-systems as well as heat pumps become more important in the building sector. Until now, there is no sufficient experience of the operation of these units in net zero-energy buildings. Due to this, Daikin Europe NV and Athoka GmbH initiated a test lab to analyse the operation in a daily office routine. To coordinate the power supply and demand of the building, an energy management system is used. To achieve an efficient heating and cooling the operation of two air-to-water and one air-to-air heat pumps was combined. Furthermore, the impact of high reflecting roof coating on the photovoltaic yield was analysed. For this reason, the effectiveness of the energy management system and the combined operation of the heat pumps are evaluated in this paper. In addition, the paper points out the central points for achieving the net zero-energy goal.