A new tool for assessing the performance of Transpired Solar Collectors used for solar ventilation pre-heating

Transpired Solar Collectors (TSCs) are an increasingly popular technology, with over 12,500 m(2) of TSCs integrated with buildings across Wales and England by the end of 2013. But in order for TSCs to achieve the desired low economic and embodied energy payback periods, their design, manufacture, installation and commissioning needs to be seamlessly integrated with that of the building as a whole. To facilitate the selection and integration of a TSC in the earliest stages of building design, a new feasibility tool for Transpired Solar Collectors has been developed. The new tool enables a full feasibility assessment to be carried out in less than five minutes, and its user-friendly methodology and interface allows it to be used by building designers who have little or no experience in designing solar thermal collectors. Comparative research presented in this paper demonstrates that the tool's feasibility engine provides similar energy performance results to the RETScreen (R) V3.1 Solar Air Heating Project Model. In addition, the new tool automatically calculates the building's heating demand and is able to consider the impact of internal gains (solar and occupancy), collector tilt, and low emissivity coatings. The new tool is not intended to replace the role of more sophisticated, dynamic modelling and simulation tools which the expert user and building energy assessor would be expected to use for the detailed design of a TSC. The new tool is currently being evaluated on commercial projects in the UK and is set to be available across Europe in early 2015. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).