Study on solar space heating for intermittently occupied buildings

Today lots of research and application of solarheating are focused on continuously occupiedbuildings, such as residential buildings. Thispaper studies solar heating for intermittentlyoccupied buildings such as offices, classrooms,workshops which generally are unoccupiedduring nights and weekends. If we stop spaceheating during nights, energy for space heatingwill be reduced. In the paper, a simple buildingis assumed and a solar assisted space heatingsystem is designed for it. Hourly simulationsduring the whole winter are conducted undervarious conditions, such as different buildingenvelopes, different control strategies and so on.The results show that whether stopping heatingduring nights in solar heating buildings can saveconventional auxiliary energy coinpared tocontinuous heating depends on the controlstrategies and types of envelopes.