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Content archived on 2024-05-27

Development of unglazed solar absorbers (resorting to coloured selective coatings on steel material) for building facades, and integration into heating systems (solabs)

Objective

Objectives and problems to be solved: The goal is to develop an innovative solar system with a significant reduction of capital cost and unit cost of the delivered heat (target: 0.025-0.03 €/kWh), a major improvement of the public acceptability (non-technical barrier) and a simplified implementation in large office, residential or industrial buildings for new or retrofit applications. R&D work on weather-resistant, coloured selective solar absorbers made of steel, will be operated as unglazed collectors in order to avoid the cost for glazing, and designed for integration in the building envelope (particularly facades).Description of the work :
. Specifications for architectural integration: architectural design & integration of absorbers as facade elements, investigation of other acceptability criteria (colour, structure, shape, sizes), development of guidelines in order to facilitate better user acceptance and market penetration (see Work-packages WP1 and WP6) leading to a price reduction by mass production.
2. Research on selective coatings and characterisation of the coatings: R&D on coloured selective coatings suitable for steel material, optical characterisation and durability tests (WP2, WP3, and WP4). Cheaper and more attractive coatings help to get new market shares at lower costs.
3. Design and prototyping of the absorbers: the focus lies on the design specifications of absorbers to be used as façade elements (WP5). Several concepts and issues will be studied such as size and modularity, costs, thermal expansion, irrigation and hydraulic connections. New and approved concepts enable new applications and cheaper manufacturing by industrial mass production.
4.. Integration in suitable heating systems and simulation of heating systems: identification, development or improvement of simplified concepts of heating systems suitable for the low temperature heat delivered by facade absorbers, production of guidelines for the design and sizing of the system (WP6).
5. Reporting and dissemination : activities to ensure short-term implementation Expected results and exploitation plans: The final expected result of this project is the widespread of solar heating by 1 reduction of the solar energy price 2. an increase of the architectural acceptance This result can be achieved with the development of new attractive coloured selective surfaces for less expensive steel absorbers, as a part of well-integrated building façades with low additional costs for the solar-specific features, and with the design of new hydraulic systems for improving the solar system performance.

Call for proposal

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Coordinator

FRAUNHOFER-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.V.
EU contribution
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Address
Oltmannsstrasse 5
79100 FREIBURG (IN BREISGAU)
Germany

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Total cost
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Participants (9)