Zero energy house

Abstract

The zero energy house project talks about sustainability. In general terms the house is designed to produce as much energy as it consume. If you take a look to the house its possible to find several systems that takes as much profit as possible to the renewable energies like photovoltaic electricity production, geothermal energy used to run a heat pump or a well thought isolated house. First of all it’s possible to find general information about the topics in house, to make people understand how our project is working. Later on we will explain the main topics to discuss it and try to work with them. The first topic of the project consists of the study of the heat transfer between the house and the external environment and the heat transfer between the rooms of the house as well. The walls of the house will be studied. Every wall hasn’t the same seriousness inside the house, so, we will try to study and find the best options to improve the insulation system of the house in Kollum. The house in Kollum has a roof full of solar panels (photovoltaic panels). As it is said in the beginning, the house is supposed to produce the whole amount of energy consumed but, if you take a look into the energy produced by the solar panels, you can realize that it’s possible to take advantage of the solar panels to produce more energy or simply waste less money. The heat pump uses the heat from the ground to provide the heating system and to supply some heat to the sanitary water. It is necessary to study how the heat pump works, to realize what are the inputs and outputs. After make the study it’s possible to see that the heat pump works, but you also can realize that the house could use a smaller heat pump. So, we will try to find a better solution for the heat production. The house uses a solar boiler to preheat the sanitary water. Depending on the period of the year the solar boiler will have different productions. Our goal is to improve the efficiency of the solar boiler to try to get the water as warm as possible without using the heat pump supply.