Solar energy for development of a cost-effective building energy system

The purpose of this paper is to describe the application of solar energy for development of cost-effective, high quality power for building energy systems. Since the first commercial use in 1957 [12], the cost of photovoltaic technology has dropped over a hundred-fold. While solar electricity is still several times more expensive than electrical energy from the utility grid, lower monthly running costs, increased reliability and uninterruptible power supply of the system without polluting the environment, often makes solar electricity systems comparatively attractive. Since the use of renewable energy is severely limited by the initial cost of the system it is important to minimize the waste of this expensive energy in any conversion process. This paper describes how to get maximum benefit out of the solar system by minimising the energy demand from the grid, reuse waste heat from the building and use direct heat from the solar thermal system to avoid wastage through the conversion.