Zoekresultaten

Practitioners’ View on the Implementation Potential of Adaptive Façades with focus on The Netherlands

The adaptivity of façades is increasingly recognized as an important functional feature to be integrated with the state-of–the-art building technology. The aim is thereby to control its reversible system states in real-time to adapt to current indoor and outdoor conditions. Concepts reported elsewhere integrate two or more functions related to structural integrity, ventilation, heating and cooling, solar protection, as well as energy generation and storage. Although advantages are perceived obvious, the number of realized case studies remains limited. Triggered by this observation, the authors of this contribution report research findings from a literature study and interviews with stakeholders in the field, including contractors, building consultants and architects. The three key-findings suggest that (1) the functions daylighting and energy generation/storage are most commonly integrated into façades or façade components characterized as being adaptive, (2) interviewees are divided on the implementation potential of most of the designs/concepts and (3) the aesthetics of the design, (investment) costs, durability and required maintenance are critical for a widespread market uptake. Herewith, this paper contributes new knowledge to the discussion related to finding the right level of system integration in building technology.

Smart TinyLab voor Systeemintegratie in de Bouw Rapportage WP 6

Outdoor performance of Infra integrated PV

The Netherlands is aiming for the roll-out of more solar PV. However like many densely populated countries, the country is running into issues of lack of space. Opportunities around infrastructural works like highways provide space without compromising the landscape. Examples of this double use are already developed and demonstrated, like for instance sound barriers and solar roads. New is the combination of solar PV with traffic barriers. This has a big potential since the Dutch main road network had 7.500 km of guiderail and the construction to put PV on is already there. In the MESH (Modular E cover for Solar Highways) project a consortium of knowledge institutes, a province and companies developed a prototype and tested it in a pilot. The consortium consists of TNO, Solliance (in which TNO is a partner, a high-end research institute for flexible thin film solar cells such as CIGS and Perovskite), Heijmans Infra (focusing mainly on the construction, improvement and maintenance of road infrastructure, including guiderails), DC Current (applying innovations with regard to power optimizers for the linear PV application), the Province of Noord-Holland (which acts as a leading customer) and the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS) as a knowledge institution that links education and research. In this project the theme Sustainable Energy Systems of AUAS is involved with both lecturers and student groups. In the project, Solliance investigated and developed the flexible thin film PV technology to be applied with a focus on shape and reliability. TNO and Heijmans developed a modular casing concept and a fastening system that allows quick installation on site. DC Current worked on the DC management with regard to voltage, electrical safety and minimizing failure in case of collision. At the end of the project, the partners in the consortium have validated knowledge about how to integrate PV into the guiderail and can start with the scaling up of the technology for commercial applications. In order to meet the various requirements for traffic safety on the one hand and generating electricity on the other hand, the Systems Engineering methodology was leading during the project. In the project we first built a small, but full scale prototype and invited safety experts to evaluate the design. With this feedback we made a redesign for the pilot. This pilot is placed on the highway as safety barrier and tested for a year. In a presentation at EU PVSEC18 [1] K.Sewalt reported on the design phase. This time we want to present the results of our test phase and give answers on our research questions.

Final report – Loughborough Operational Pilot

This OP was deployed in two phases, focusing on Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) and Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G). Its first phase took place at a private residence in Loughborough and ran from March 2017 up to December 2017. This phase 1 is also referred to as the ‘Loughborough pilot’. The second phase took place from February 2020 until present at a comparable residence in Burton-upon-Trent, thereafter, referred to as the ‘Burton pilot’ or ‘phase 2’. Both pilots included bi-directional chargers, Electric Vehicles (EV), Battery Static Storage (BSS) and rooftop solar PhotoVoltaic panels (PV).The main goals of this pilot were to demonstrate the added value of V2H and V2G of using additional energy storage and PV in households.Challenges encountered in the project include interoperability issues, particularly in phase 1, and the unforeseen development of the homeowner selling his house, meaning a new location needed to be found. However, this challenge ultimately provided an excellent opportunity to implement lessons for interoperability and to act upon the recommendations from the intermediate analysis of the Loughborough pilot. This report is mainly focussed on phase 1 (Loughborough), and additional analysis for Burton-upon-Trent (phase 2) can be found in the appendix.

Modular E-cover for Smart Highway (MESH): Ontwikkeling van PV op de geleiderail

Grootschalige toepassing van zonnecellen (photovoltaic cells, PV) in de gebouwde omgeving is gelimiteerd, mede omdat dakoppervlakken niet volledig benut kunnen worden ten gevolge van de ligging en de aanwezigheid van verstorende elementen als schoorstenen, dakkapellen, daklichten, etc. Het wegennet in Nederland biedt aanknopingspunten voor integratie van PV waarmee nog meer zonlicht omgezet kan worden in elektriciteit. Een terugkerend element in de infrastructuur is de geleiderail (vangrail); alleen al in Nederland staat er 7400 km geleiderail, met een potentie van 700 MWp aan geïntegreerde PV. Op die manier wordt dubbel ruimtegebruik gerealiseerd. In dit project is dunne film PV toegepast op geleiderails langs de provinciale weg in een modulaire ‘E-cover’. De opgewekte stroom is geleverd aan het elektriciteitsnet. De verwachting is dat in de toekomst steeds meer infrastructuur voor verkeersmanagement toegepast wordt in het kader van de transitie naar “smart highways”. Dit zal een drijfveer zijn voor toepassing van het modulaire E-cover concept voor de smart highway, met lokale energieopwekking.

Component design and testing for a miniaturised autonomous sensor based on a nanowire materials platform

From Springer description: "We present the design considerations of an autonomous wireless sensor and discuss the fabrication and testing of the various components including the energy harvester, the active sensing devices and the power management and sensor interface circuits. A common materials platform, namely, nanowires, enables us to fabricate state-of-the-art components at reduced volume and show chemical sensing within the available energy budget. We demonstrate a photovoltaic mini-module made of silicon nanowire solar cells, each of 0.5 mm2 area, which delivers a power of 260 μW and an open circuit voltage of 2 V at one sun illumination. Using nanowire platforms two sensing applications are presented. Combining functionalised suspended Si nanowires with a novel microfluidic fluid delivery system, fully integrated microfluidic–sensor devices are examined as sensors for streptavidin and pH, whereas, using a microchip modified with Pd nanowires provides a power efficient and fast early hydrogen gas detection method. Finally, an ultra-low power, efficient solar energy harvesting and sensing microsystem augmented with a 6 mAh rechargeable battery allows for less than 20 μW power consumption and 425 h sensor operation even without energy harvesting."