A novel roof type heat recovery panel for low-carbon buildings: An experimental investigation

Energy saving and its efficient utilization is of prime interest in today's world due to the limited energy resources and growing significance of environmental issues. Despite the intensive efforts to narrow the gap between conventional energy sources (wood, coal, gas, oil, etc.) and renewables, renewable energy resources currently supply only about 14% of total world energy demand. In this regard, energy management and optimization are considered compulsory as much as the clean energy generation. Recent works indicate that the buildings play a significant role on global energy consumption. They are responsible for about 40% of global energy demand. Among the different building types, domestic buildings have the largest share with 63% and most of energy is utilized for heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in those buildings. Energy consumption levels of buildings can be notably reduced through waste heat recovery in HVAC systems. There are several attempts in literature addressing the possibility of decreasing energy consumption of buildings via waste heat recovery technologies. The heat recovery technologies are cost effective and user friendly applications. The use of heat recovery systems aims at mitigating the energy consumption for HVAC applications as well as the greenhouse gas emissions, and hence decreasing the adverse effects of global warming on the Earth. It is well-documented in literature that the heat recovery systems are very promising for domestic applications. In this paper, experimental results of a novel heat recovery system developed for low-carbon buildings are presented. The proposed heat recovery system consists of a plate-type heat exchanger, blower fans and ducts. The parallel-flow arrangement is used to run the system. The system is designed as under roof application. The aim of the system is to recover waste heat and to preheat fresh air using stale air. The experiments of the system are carried out in winter season in Kent, UK. The study aims to investigate the coefficient of performance (COP) of the system as well as the heat recovery efficiency. The results show that the heat recovery efficiency of the proposed system is around 89% while the COP is 4.5. The proposed system can be used in both winter and summer conditions without requiring additional work. Its labor cost is extremely low, so it is cost-effective and user friendly.