The Solar House: a True Low Carbon Solution for 2016?

Session 2, Paper 2, CIBSE ASHRAE Technical Symposium, Dublin, Ireland, 3-4 April 2014

The greatest challenge for new English housing to meet the 2016 zero carbon target, or similar ambitions elsewhere, is the provision of space and water heating. This paper describes the performance of a new ‘solar house’ near Leicester, England which uses hybrid solar photovoltaic/thermal panels, a solar wall, an under-floor earth heat store, and heat pumps to provide electricity and heating. Heat can come from the earth bank, directly from solar heat in the panels or in the absence of sun, just from the ambient air via the panels. The house is being intensively monitored, and over a year is designed to be carbon negative. Initial performance, following charging of the earth bank in the summer of 2013, is presented together with a description of the system and how this can be modelled. While the concept of inter-seasonal heat storage is not new, this house uses a unique combination of technologies that can provide a low cost solution without the need for expensive boring.