Abstract

The residential sector represents 17% of Canada's secondary energy use, with more than 78% of this contribution due to space and domestic hot water heating. In that perspective, systems that do not require any auxiliary energy are of a certain interest. Such objective is not easy to accomplish, especially in cold climates, but yet can be reached by both upgrading the buildings overall thermal performance and using efficient renewable energy sources. An integrated building model is developed into the TRNSYS 16 simulation environment. First, a typical one-storey detached house, located in Montreal is considered as a base case. Conventional electric baseboard heaters and an electric domestic hot water storage tank provide the space heating and domestic hot water requirements. A life cycle performance of the house is performed and results of the life cycle energy use, environmental impacts and life cycle cost are presented. Second, several design alternatives are proposed to improve the life cycle performance of the base case house. The solution that minimizes the energy demand is finally chosen as a reference building for the study of long-term thermal storage. Third, the computer simulation of a solar heating system with solar thermal collectors and long-term thermal storage capacity is presented. The system is designed to supply hot water for the radiant floor heating system and domestic hot water. Simulation results show that the system is able to cover a whole year of energy requirements using a minimum of auxiliary energy. A sensitivity analysis is performed to improve the overall performance. The life cycle energy use and life cycle cost of the system are investigated and results presented in the thesis.