Performance study of ventilated energy-productive wall: Experimental and numerical analysis

Curtain walls are widely used in high-rise office buildings, but the curtain wall enclosure significantly impacts building energy consumption, which contradicts China's dual carbon goals. This article proposes a ventilated energy-productive wall, with cogeneration to replace the curtain wall in order to reduce energy consumption. A ventilated energy-productive wall consists of a photovoltaic module, an air channel and a curtain wall, which performance is closely related to the structure and size of the air channel. According to the physical model of the ventilated energy-productive wall, a mathematical model is established and solved to analyze the airflow characteristics within the air channel and the heat transfer characteristics of the system. Numerical results show that the inner surface and average temperature of the photovoltaic panel are reduced by a maximum of 7.12 % and 2.12 % respectively by adding an air channel. The maximum temperature drop occurs in the 200-mm-thick air channel, and its outlet temperature drop is approximately 6.14 % lower than that of a 140-mm-thick air channel. An energy room is built based on the optimization results with a 200-mm-thick air channel in the ventilated energy-productive wall. At the peak moment, the average testing temperature on the inner and outer surfaces of the photovoltaic module are 50.12 degrees C and 48.9 degrees C, respectively, and the average temperature in the air channel is 38.2 degrees C. The numerical results agree well with the experimental results with an error not exceeding 5 %.