ENERGY OPTIMIZATION OF SERBIAN BUILDINGS WITH PV PANELS AND GAS HEATING SYSTEM

Abstract

For clean and renewable electricity generation, solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is the best option. Solar energy has become a promising alternative source due to its advantages: abundance, pollution free, and renewability. On the other hand, gas heating system is an low-temperature and low-energetic system. In this paper, the possibilities to decrease energy consumption of Serbian residential buildings are analyzed. The building with gas space heating and electrical energy generated by PV system is investigated. The major aim is to determine the area of the PV array in order to minimize the consumption of primary energy. The residential buildings with variable thermal insulation thickness, variable domestic hot water consumption and variable types of PV panels are investigated in order to achieve positive-net energy building (PNEB). The buildings are simulated in EnergyPlus environment. Open Studio plug-in in Google SketchUp was used for buildings design, Hooke-Jeeves algorithm for optimization and GENOPT software for software execution control. The obtained results gave the optimal size of PV array.