Comparative analysis of a design tool to field study data for an unglazed transpired solar collector

Abstract

Energy consumption and emission concerns have come to the forefront of political and public attention. The adoption of building energy standards such as ASHRAE Standard 90.1 have helped guide the building industry by setting increasingly stringent building energy performance requirements. In order to meet these ever increasing energy standards, research and development of energy efficient technologies have become a priority. One of these is the unglazed transpired solar collector (UTSC) which is particularly useful in sunny, cold climates such as Bozeman, Montana. This research intends to bridge the gap between theoretical models and field studies by comparing an accepted UTSC model within a commercially available energy modeling software -- EnergyPlus -- to experimental data collected at Jabs Hall in Bozeman, Montana. An energy model was created to represent a UTSC and its associated building in a commercially available software. Weather and operating data for the UTSC was collected on site. The collected weather data was used to create a custom input weather file for the energy model. The collected operational data was used to characterize the UTSC performance and compare to the energy model results. Limitations for both the energy and data acquisition make it difficult for the results to be compared directly. However, conclusions were drawn about UTSC integration into building systems.