Solar integrated roof: Electrical and thermal production for a building renovation

Solar renovation of a training Centre at Casargo, Lecco, Italy was financed in 2006 by Lombardy Region in collaboration with Politecnico di Milano. The refurbishment programme interested the technical unit of the building and reduced thermal demand. The technology used for the roof refurbishment is an innovative system called TIS (Tetto Integrale Solarizzato); which means solar integrated roof and developed by the Italian company Seccosistemi under a research collaboration with Politecnico di Milano. TIS is a modular covering system with the option to insert the various types of solar energy modules, providing most suitable dimension and configuration for a specific application. The prototype of TIS system was studied by R&D programme carried out at the Politecnico di Milano aimed at the creation of a practical and flexible system, easy to install and maintain, that would allow the co-presence of hybrid photovoltaic thermal panels, air or water thermal collectors and non-energetic closure elements, in such a way as to be used the whole shell and not only those parts affected by solar installation.This paper presents the design details, energy performance and economic evaluation of solar integration roof of Casargo. The building is under mointoring phase. A comparision has been made between the monitored and simulated energy performance data. Further an economic analysis has been carried out to estimate financial benefits derived from the solar integration roof. Finally the estimations have been made regarding the avoided CO2 emissions and its cost. (C) 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.