Solar house : a guide for the solar designer

240 Pages·2004·5.495 MB·English

by  Terry R Galloway

Solar House:
A Guide for the Solar Designer
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Solar House:
A Guide for the Solar
Designer
Terry Galloway

AMSTERDAM •BOSTON •HEIDELBERG
•LONDON •NEW YORK • OXFORD •PARIS
• SAN DIEGO •SAN FRANCISCO
•SINGAPORE • SYDNEY •TOKYO
Architectural Press is an imprint of Elsevier Architectural
Press
Architectural Press
An Imprint of Elsevier Limited
Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP
200 Wheeler Road, Burlington, MA 01803
First published 2004
©Dr Terry R Galloway 2004
The right of Dr Terry R Galloway to be identified as the author of
this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988
Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science and
Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone: ((cid:2)44) (0)
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‘Customer Support’ and then ‘Obtaining Permissions’
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
in any material form (including photocopying or storing in any
medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or
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written permission of the copyright holder except in accordance
with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing
Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, England W1T 4LP.
Applications for the copyright holder’s written permission to
reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the
publisher
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of
Congress
ISBN 0 7506 58312
For information on all Architectural Press publications visit
our website at www.architecturalpress.com
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Printed and bound in Great Britain
Contents
Foreword ix
Preface xiii
Acknowledgements xv
List of figures xvi
List of tables xviii
Disclaimer xix
Dedication xxi
1 Goal of this guide 01
1.1 Users of this guide book 01
1.2 Solar is a critical part of the global 02
renewables mix
1.3 Energy futures 05
1.4 Environmental philosophy 06
1.5 New construction or rehab 07
1.6 Examples of the design process 09
1.7 Business philosophy 12
2 Site location 15
2.1 Solar insolation 15
2.2 Weather and microclimates 17
2.3 Heating/cooling needs 19
2.4 PV power production 31

3 Thermal mass – heated by solar and by 35
ground-coupled
3.1 Amount and distribution of thermal mass 35
3.2 Thermal energy storage 36
3.3 Re-radiation and release of heat at night 39
or in cloudy weather
3.4 Thermal mass – heated/cooled by 40
ground-coupling
3.5 Passive solar home – putting together the 43
solar effects
4 Attached greenhouse passive heating 47
4.1 Split greenhouse design 47
4.2 Fixed section – the solarium 48
vi Contents
4.3 Controlled vent section – the 51
solar greenhouse
4.4 Vegetables 53
4.5 Starting early seed plants 56
5 Domestic hot water 61
5.1 House DHW usage patterns 61
5.2 DHW tank storage capacity 62
5.3 Plumbing configuration 65
5.4 Insulation 67
5.5 Temperature monitoring locations 69
5.6 Controls 70
6 Combined DHW and swimming pool heating 75
6.1 Synergistic relationship 75
6.2 Collector capacity 76
6.3 Swimming season and pool temperature 79
6.4 Smart controls 80
6.5 Solar PVs to supply power to swimming pool 81
pump and chlorinator
7 Space heating 85
7.1 Seasonal heat demand 85
7.2 Solar thermal collector heat utilization 86
in winter
7.3 Design of building envelope 88
7.4 Radiant floors 89
7.5 Living comfort 93
7.6 Geothermal heat pump and location 93
of underground coils
7.7 Thermal zone controls 97
7.8 Wood fireplace backup heat 106
7.9 Ceiling fans in wall upflow 108

7.10 Ambiance 108
8 Space cooling 113
8.1 Cooling radiant floors is not recommended 113
8.2 Nocturnal cooling strategy 113
8.3 PV-powered attic fan is only a part-solution 117
8.4 Ceiling fans in wall downflow 117
8.5 Geothermal heat pump cooling of room air 118
8.6 Thermal transient/capacity of ground coils 119
8.7 Thermal zone controls 120
9 PV electric power 125
9.1 Grid-connected, net-metering, and 125
Time-Of-Use pricing
Contents vii
9.2 Stand-alone systems and energy storage 130
options
9.3 Sizing PV for house loads 133
9.4 Load shifting options 135
9.5 PV collectors with integral hot water 136
heating (PV/T)
9.6 Present research leading to cheaper/high 142
efficiency future PV collectors
10 Annual energy use 145
10.1 Berkeley house 145
10.2 Comparison of EU and US 146
11 Maintenance saves money 149
11.1 Preventative maintenance schedule 149
11.2 Stable major suppliers 150
11.3 Experience record 151
12 Payback economics 155
12.1 State and Federal incentives 155
12.2 Tax benefits 156
12.3 Payback analysis 156
13 Thermal performance monitoring and control 161
13.1 Real-time data display 161
13.2 Archiving data 162
13.3 Analyzing data trends 163
13.4 Scheduling 165
13.5 Adaptive controls 168
13.6 Optimization 169
13.7 Interface with other automated control 170
functions
14 Solar energy future op tions 175
14.1 Future developments 175
14.2 Role of renewables in the global 182
energy future
14.3 Wind/solar hybrid synergies 183
14.4 Vehicles powered by electrolytic hydrogen 184
14.5 Fuel cells for electricity and heat 186
References and Further reading 189
List of useful websites 193
Abbreviations 197
Glossary 199
Appendix 202
Index 209
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Foreword
Octobers in the San Francisco Bay Area are always warm; and
in late October, for at least a few days, the winds usually reverse
direction and blow westerly, bringing even warmer air to the
coastal areas from California’s famous Central Valley. There is
even a name for these winds: the Santa Anas. People around
here inexplicably call this ‘earthquake weather’, but it really is
fire weather. The morning of 21 October 1991, I remember
noticing the balmy breeze coming from the ‘wrong’ direction
as I left my home in the Oakland hills and drove to work. Little
did I know that the East Bay landscape, along with thousands
of people’s lives, was about to undergo a sudden and dramatic
change.
I didn’t know Terry Galloway at that time. But within two
days I knew the name of the street he lived on – Charing Cross.
Most of the fatalities from what became known as the Oakland
Firestorm occurred within one block of Terry’s house, on the
14(cid:3) wide, winding, steep stretch of pavement that the City of
Oakland had refused to widen and which had vexed Terry and
his neighbors for years. But that’s another story...
It may be that if there had not been an Oakland Hills
Firestorm, Terry Galloway would never have walked into my
office. But I like to think that the life path we had each staked out
for ourselves made our meeting inevitable. Terry had dedicated
his professional life years earlier to renewable energy research
and development, and had been a pioneer in promoting
hydrogen fuel cells, calling for the use of medical or feedlot

waste rather than petroleum to create the hydrogen. Terry had
also extensively researched solar energy systems and was a
strong advocate. As for me, since graduating in Mechanical
Engineering from UC Berkeley in 1974, I had dedicated my life
to promoting solar energy as the primary long-term energy
source for the planet. So when Terry showed up at Sun Light &
Power a month after the fire, I immediately knewthat I had met
a kindred spirit. Terry asked me to help him designand build a
complete solar home, with both passive and active solar
design elements. From day one Terry knew what he wanted to
do with his new home, and he never wavered from his vision:
he wanted his home to be a ‘living laboratory’. He wanted to
be able to live inside his own grand experiment in solar living.
So great was his dedication that he actually lived for his first