PERFORMANCE EVALUATION AND ECONOMIC OPTIMIZATION OF SOLAR HEATING SYSTEM FOR SHILLONG

Abstract

It has been widely reported in the literature that solar heating is economical in cold climates.' In this diss-ertation an analysis is carried out for an office building with solar space heating application in a hill-station of India, viz. Shillong. With the information of construction details of building, heat transfer coefficient (UA) of build-ing is calculated. The performance of heating system is simulated with the help of TRNSYS by varying collector areas. The simula-tion provides the knowledge of heating load, auxiliary energy consumption and performance of collectors for different colle-ctor areas. With the knowledge of load and auxiliary energy consum-ption, present worth of total investment is computed using life cycle cost analysis. It is found that the use of solar heating is economical. Economic optimization is done on the basis of collector area. The cost comparisons are made by using differ. ent fuels viz. kerosene, LPG and furnace oil and different inflation rates viz. 5%, 7% and 10%.