Energy Efficient Analysis on an Industrial Building Coated with Solar Reflective Materials: a Case Study in China and Australia

摘要

Demands to reduce energy consumption, CO2 emissions accordingly,and use of energy-efficient technology become more and more urgent due to environmental problems associated with global warming that results in climate change.Generally,buildings dominate energy consumption with about 28% of overall energy use worldwide,with an even higher proportion of 45% in western countries.Therefore,it is of great significance to reduce energy consumption in dwellings,offices and industrial buildings.By developing a dynamic thermal model for an industrial building (a retail shed) coated with solar reflective materials on its external walls and roof,this paper aims to compare the annual cooling/heating loads and electricity consumption yielded by air-conditioning system for locations of Beijing,Shanghai and Guangzhou in China and Rockhampton in Australia (corresponding to different climates).This study employs a range of different coloured coatings with different solar reflectance in the near infrared (invisible) region of the solar spectrum in combination with different skin type (single or insulated skin) of the building.The modelling and computational results prove that the use of solar reflective coatings is effective in reducing cooling load and overall electricity consumption,with more benefit for the locations of hot climate with predominant cooling requirements.In addition,by using these coatings,the study recommends the use of heat pumps instead of electric heaters for the building to achieve more energy savings;in particular for locations that needs higher heating power in winter.The performance issue of CO2 emissions has also been performed in this paper.