Installation of photovoltaic panels on the roofs allows a reduction in cooling costs by 5%

The photovoltaic panels installed on the roof of the house help to reduce the cost of air conditioning in summer but do not affect the heating in winter. The shading reduces by 38% the amount of heat that reaches the roof and a ceiling below a roof with panels remains cooler to 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit compared to a ceiling under a roof directly exposed to the sun.

The cooling effect, calculated throughout the life cycle of the panel, contributes to amortize the price of a good 5%, because it allows to save energy, that instead of being used on site can then be sold to the grid.

These measures come from an analysis with the camera of a single building in California (the Powell Structural Systems Laboratory at the Jacobs School of Engineering), for a limited period of time (three days in April), but the researchers, led by Jan Kleissl (assistant professor of environmental engineering) believe they have correctly extrapolated the data to extend the entire year. The article in which they present their results and 'been subjected to peer review and published in Solar Energy.

The research 'was funded so far by NASA Graduate Student Research Program fellowship, if they were to renew funding, researchers expect to develop a model that would allow anyone to calculate the cooling effect of its own solar panels on the building in the its climate zone.

30/07/2011

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Translated via software

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Source:

Italian version of ReteIngegneri.it