We report on the carbon footprint of 22 scenario pathways for the transition of the Australian electricity sector to predominantly renewable energy (RE). The analysis employs a dynamic and discrete numerical model that takes into account what we have termed renewable energy ‘breeding’, i.e. RE technologies are being made increasingly with renewable electricity as the transition progresses.

Highlights

• Validated swimming pool and collector model, good agreement with experimental data.
• Solar pool heating system performance optimized based on COP (energy ratio).
• Optimized system achieves pump energy savings of approximately 60%.
• System produces enough pressure to keep the vacuum relief valve closed.
• Potential for 180 GWh of electricity & 150 kt of CO2 savings per year in Australia.

Abstract

In this study, the outputs from a simple PV performance model were compared to measurements of AC power for three PV systems located across Sydney, Australia. The study aimed to investigate the level of uncertainty and bias of the model when onsite measurements of plane of array (POA) irradiance and module temperature were not available. The results demonstrated that the simple PV performance model estimated the AC performance with a low level of model bias (NBME=±3.2%) and uncertainty (NRMSE

Building energy performance simulations are limited to typical meteorological weather conditions available in simulation software. Such simulations are insufficient for analysing energy performance sensitivity to a range of probable weather conditions. This research presents a method for developing robust meteorological weather data that can be used for energy performance sensitivity analysis without the need to access historical weather data. The method decomposes dry bulb temperature (DBT) and global horizontal solar radiation (H) into deterministic and stochastic components.

This paper presents energetic, economic, and environmental (3E) analyses of four configurations of solar heating and cooling (SHC) systems based on coupling evacuated tube collectors with a single-effect LiBre-H2O absorption chiller. In the first configuration (SHC1), a gas-fired heater is used as the back-up system, while a mechanical compression chiller is employed as the auxiliary cooling system in the second configuration (SHC2). The capacity of the absorption chiller is designed based on the maximum building cooling load in these configurations.

Photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) air collector design requires an accurate determination of key parameters such as the channel depth and the air mass flow rate. This paper focuses on PV/T air collectors linked to an air distribution system with the aim of optimizing the channel depth, the air mass flow rate per unit collector area and the air distribution duct diameter considering the whole system performance. A weighted effective thermal energy output which includes electrical and thermal energy generated and fan power usage was utilized to examine the energy performance of the whole system.