Heating and cooling in high-rise buildings using façade integrated transparent solar thermal collector systems

New façades of high-rise buildings often include renewable energy converters to allow “green building” operation. At the same time, numerous tenants value visual transparency. Transparent solar thermal collectors (TSTC) aim at decreasing the non-renewable primary energy (NRPE) demand and increasing the visual transparency at the same time. On the one hand, this paper presents the main modelling challenges that arise when considering building façades and especially integrated TSTC systems. New TRNSYS Types have been especially developed for this purpose. A simplified model is presented for comparison. On the other hand, the overall performance for a building with façade-integrated TSTC, as measured by its NRPE demand, is treated. This is achieved by considering a complete simulation model coupling the TSTC, building and HVAC operation. Possibilities for PE savings are investigated using the building mass as additional thermal storage.