Design and Performance Analysis of an Inclined Glazing Photovoltaic-Trombe Wall System with Automated Fan Control

The Trombe wall (TW) is a passive solar heating system utilizing natural convection between indoor air and a device gap spacing. Incorporating TWs as building envelope elements can significantly reduce the energy consumption of HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) systems. Photovoltaic panels (PV) and fans are often integrated into TW systems with parallel glazing. As previous studies of TW with forced convection only focused on TW with glazing parallel to the wall, this study designs and analyses the unprecedented case of forced convection effects on a PV-TW system with 70° inclined glazing and automatically controlled damper fans. For the design of the TW-PV system, the VDI 2221 guideline was used. The obtained system energy requirement is 438.424 Wh, to operate continuously for 8 hours without solar power, which can be satisfied by a 2400 Wh battery connected to solar panels. Simulations using Energy2D software, considering a reference ambient temperature of 15℃, revealed that with a fixed upper vent outlet velocity of 0.1 m/s, increasing lower vent inlet velocities decreased indoor air temperatures. The maximum average indoor temperature of 24.39℃ was achieved at 0.1 m/s inlet velocity, decreasing to 19.14℃ at 0.4 m/s, demonstrating that higher inlet velocities reduce indoor temperatures in this configuration. This study provides crucial insights into the performance of forced convection in a PV-TW system with inclined glazing, offering a foundation for future research and innovative sustainable building design.