Solar Technologies for Buildings

A complete overview of solar technologies relevant to the built environment, including solar thermal energy for heating and cooling, passive solar energy for daylighting and heating supply, and photovoltaics for electricity production Provides practical examples and calculations to enable component and system simulation e.g. Calculation of U-values, I-V curve parameters and radiance distribution modelling Discusses the new trends in thermal energy use, including the architectural integration of collector systems, integrated ventilation photovoltaics facades and solar powered absorption cooling systems Coverage of cutting-edge applications such as active and passive cooling techniques and results from ongoing research projects

Author Biography

Ursula Eicker is a physicist who carries out international research projects on solar cooling, heating, electricity production and building energy efficiency at the University of Applied Sciences in Stuttgart. She obtained her PhD in amorphous silicon thin-film solar cells from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and then worked on the process development of large-scale amorphous silicon modules in France. She continued her research in photovoltaic system technology at the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research in Stuttgart. She set up the Solar Energy and Building Physics Research Group in Stuttgart in 1993. Her current research emphasis is on the development and implementation of active solar thermal cooling technologies, low-energy buildings and sustainable communities, control strategies and simulation technology, heat transfer in façades, etc. Since 2002 she has been the scientific director of the research centre on sustainable energy technologies (zafh.net) in BadenWürttemberg. She also heads the Institute of Applied Research of the University of Applied Sciences in Stuttgart, where building physicists, geoinformation scientists, mathematicians, civil engineers and architects cooperate. During the last 10 years Professor Eicker has coordinated numerous research projects on sustainable communities with renewable energy systems and highly efficient buildings. The largest projects include the European Integrated POLYCITY Project, a demonstration project on sustainable buildings and systems in Germany, Italy and Spain, and the European PhD school CITYNET on information system design for sustainable communities.