Shunyao Lu

Building energy consumption accounts for a significant portion of total society energy use, and photovoltaic technology is being rapidly deployed across the construction sector. In order to improve the efficiency with which photovoltaic shading devices capture solar energy, a numerical calculation model for the ideal tilt angle of these devices is constructed in this study. This model is based on clear-sky solar radiation calculation algorithms and solar radiation resources across different latitudes. In order to maximize solar radiation collection, an ideal control strategy for photovoltaic shading devices on buildings with varied orientations at different latitudes and in different months is derived through numerical simulations. The findings demonstrate that the building’s orientation has a significant role in determining how well photovoltaic shading systems use solar energy. In winter, the ideal tilt angle for south-facing facades increases by 10° for every 10° increase in latitude. And for every 25° rise in latitude, the ideal tilt angle increases by only around 10° in summer. By applying optimal regulatory strategies, solar radiation consumption efficiency of roughly 65% can be attained, providing a reference basis for boosting power generating efficiency and building energy saving.

In glass curtain wall buildings, the solar radiation irradiation depth is greater, more solar radiation heat gain also has a greater impact on the indoor thermal environment. In the traditional air-conditioning system design, the inner and outer zoning of air-conditioning often relies on engineering experience and is not applicable to glass curtain wall buildings, therefore, it is necessary to propose a new method of internal and external zoning for glass curtain wall buildings. In this paper, the distribution of solar radiation in the room throughout the year is analysed to clarify the depth of solar radiation in the room and the influence range on the indoor radiant thermal environment. The results show that the influence range of solar radiation in the south-oriented room is 2m in summer and 3m in winter, and the influence range of solar radiation in the east and west oriented room is 3m in summer and about 2.5m in winter. The results of this paper provide a theoretical basis for the delineation of the inner and outer zones of buildings with glass curtain walls, which can reduce the thermal discomfort of the people in the room and the energy consumption.

The solar heat gain is an important component of building cooling load, and its magnitude affects building energy consumption directly. In buildings with glass curtain walls, the window to wall rate is close to 1, so the amount of solar heat gain is huge, which directly determines the energy consumption level of a building’s air conditioning system. In fact, incident solar radiation can escape to the exterior through the transparent envelope, which cannot be ignored in buildings with glass curtain walls. This will cause changes in solar heat gain, so the solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) needs to be corrected. In this paper, the heat transfer process of solar radiation in window shading systems is analyzed, and an amended calculation model for the SHGC is established. Multiple forms of windows and shading systems are selected and their SHGC-amended factor for rooms with different orientations under different standard calculation conditions in various countries is calculated. As the number of glass layers increases, the transmittance of the window gradually decreases, the reflectance and absorbance gradually increase, and the SHGC value decreases. The SHGC-amended factor decreases with an increasing escape rate, and the two can be approximated as a linear correlation. The weakening effect of shading on the solar heat gain of the buildings is overestimated. The SHGC-amended factor proposed in this paper can calculate building solar heat gain more accurately.

More and more modern buildings are using glass curtain walls as their building envelope. The large area of window leads to a significant increase in solar heat gain, resulting in an increase in the cooling load and energy consumption of the building envelope. In the calculation of building cooling load, the thermal performance parameter of windows, the solar heat gain coefficient, is used to calculate the solar radiation heat gain of the windows. The window-to-wall ratio of buildings with glazing facades is large, and the phenomenon of escape of incident solar radiation cannot be ignored. In order to calculate the solar radiation escape rate, a dynamic model of solar radiation escape rate incorporating the solar path tracking model is developed in this research, which can achieve big data simulation analysis based on actual meteorological conditions. The model is programmed and simulated using MATLAB R2024a software. Five representative cities from different climate regions in China are selected and the variation rule of solar radiation escape rate are analyzed on three different time scales: day, month, and year. The influence of building orientation was also calculated and analyzed. The numerical calculation results indicate that the escape solar radiation rate varies with the incident angle of solar radiation at different times. It was found that the smaller the solar azimuth angle and solar altitude angle, the smaller the escape rate of solar radiation. The latitude of a city has a significant impact on the solar radiation escape rate. The weighted average of the solar radiation escape rates for each city were calculated for both summer and winter. Regardless of the season, the city’s location, and the orientation of the room, the value of solar radiation escape rate varies from 8.64% to 10.33%, which indicates that the solar radiation escape phenomenon cannot be ignored in glass curtain wall buildings. The results can be used as a reference value of solar radiation escape rate for the correction of actual solar heat gain of buildings in different climate regions.

The accurate distribution of solar energy on indoor walls is the basis of simulating the indoor thermal environment, and its specific distribution changes all the time due to the influence of solar azimuth and altitude angle. By analyzing the assumptions of each model, the existing solar energy distribution models are eight kinds in all and are divided into three categories. The solar radiation models in TRNSYS, EnergyPlus, and Airpak software all use the absorption-weighted area ratio method, which assumes that a single interior surface is a whole, but the detailed assumptions of the models used in the three software are different. In the Radiosity-irradiation method, the indoor surfaces are discretized into small surfaces for calculation. The calculation accuracy of solar radiation distribution indoors can be controlled by the number of discrete small surfaces. The Radiosity-irradiation method is implemented by using Matlab software programming in this paper. Through the numerical calculation and analysis of typical cases, the solar distribution results of the absorption-weighted area ratio method and the Radiosity-irradiation method all show the asymmetry. The asymmetrical ratio of direct solar radiation varies during the time between 7.96–9.89, and the minimum turns up at 11:30 in the summer solstice. The asymmetrical ratio of diffuse solar radiation is 3.23 constantly. The asymmetrical ratio of total solar energy is mainly influenced by the direct and diffuse solar feat gain and its value changes in the range from 3.4 to 4.45 in the summer solstice. Calculation comparison and error analysis on the solar radiation models used in TRNSYS, EnergyPlus, and Airpak software are conducted. There are significant errors in the simulation results of all three software. TRNSYS has the highest error among the three software as its results do not change over time. For EnergyPlus, the distribution ratio of floor 1 is too large. Airpak has the smallest error, but the solar radiation distribution ratios of the indoor surfaces near the south glazing facade are underrated, especially the indoor surfaces that have not been exposed to direct solar radiation.