Santa Clara University

Overview

This is a research project at the solar energy markets in California by standardizing Building Integrated Technologies (BIT) and quantifying total energy savings in solar buildings. The project is supported by The California Energy Commission and it is in collaboration with Solar Tech. The project started in the fall of 2008 under the supervision of Dr. Mark Aschheim (Civil Engineering Professor) and Dr. Jorge Gonzalez (currently at City College New York). The team has developed unique methods to quantify -real time- energy savings in buildings and associated carbon offsets, and is benchmarking solar PV installation techniques and new technologies that can all be integrated into the buildings facades more effectively. The project makes direct use of the award winning Solar Decathlon Homes of 2007 and 2009 to test the concepts. 

Workshop on the scope of CO2 Cap and Trade opportunities

This research group held a workshop at Santa Clara University facilities on January 15 2010 discussing opportunities in the methods to quantify energy reductions and associated carbon offsets in commercial and residential buildings. Institutions such as the SolarTech and CEC were represented in the workshop having an agenda discussing the following topics:

• The evaluation for the prospect impacts of the Cap & Trade market that is being established in California according to AB32 in the solar residential sector; The revision of strategies to enable residential and industrial consumers to participate in the cap and trade market (see slides).
• Building instrumentation and energy efficiency metering for residential buildings and carbon savings (see slides).
• Economic analysis of plug and play, BIPV and power management technology for residential solar PV (see slides).

Building Energy Consumption & Analysis of the Solar Decathlon 2009 House

A unique carbon metering method has been developed by SCU engineering faculty and students to determine the sustainability of Refract House, SCU's entry in the 2009 U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon. The meter measures CO2 offsets resulting from energy savings (compared to a reference house with a Coefficient Of Performance "COP" of 3) from the building envelope, construction materials, appliances, and from the solar power delivered through the home's photovoltaic system. Results of the Energy consumption, Energy generation, Carbon Offsets, and energy savings for various dates of the competition held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., are shown in the plots below.

The development of the Carbon Meter is sponsored by the California Energy Commission through a grant to SolarTech, a PV industry consortium, as a possible mechanism to quantify real-time carbon offsets in the solar industry.

Read more about this research.

Figure 1. Total energy consumption for the time period 10/08/2009 – 10/14/2009	Figure 2. Total energy consumption for the time period 10/14/2009 – 10/20/2009
Figure 3. Total energy production and consumption for the time period 10/08/2009 – 10/14/2009	Figure 4. Total energy production and consumption for the time period 10/14/2009 – 10/20/2009
Figure 5. Daily CO2 offsets for the time period 10/08/2009 – 10/14/2009	Figure 6. Daily CO2 offsets for the time period 10/14/2009 – 10/20/2009
Figure 7. Daily savings for the time period 10/08/2009 – 10/14/2009	Figure 8. Daily savings for the time period 10/14/2009 – 10/20/2009

if you have any question or need help or information on interpreting the above results you may contact Dr. Mark Aschheim at maschheim@scu.edu