Variances in building energy consumption – influence of domestic hot water system parameters

Abstract

Domestic hot water system (DHW) accounts a great amount of energy consumption in residential buildings. As buildings are large energy consumers, it is very important to implement all measures for reducing total energy consumption and to increase building energy efficiency. By using a system with solar collectors for water heating, significant savings in electricity consumption for domestic water heating can be achieved. In this study it is analyzed final energy consumption in a building with solar water heating system. Investigated building, located in the city of Kragujevac, is simulated in EnergyPlus software. Building design was carried out with Open Studio plug-in in Google SketchUp, and it had electric heating system and system of solar collectors for water heating. The researches were conducted on the impact of different hot water temperature and different hot water consumption to the amount of generated thermal energy in the solar system, as to the total energy consumption. At the end, the economic analysis of modeled solar system was carried out.