Investigation of building-integrated photovoltaic, photovoltaic thermal, ground source heat pump and green roof systems

Renewable and bioclimatic techniques play a major role in promoting the sustainability of buildings. Therefore, it is important to study the performance of these techniques in various climates to identify the best solutions with optimized configurations in each region for maximum effectiveness, leading to broader adoption of these stra-tegies and a more energy-efficient built environment. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of integrating photovoltaic (PV), photovoltaic thermal (PVT) and ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems, and green roof (GR) strategy into a typical residential building in six different Moroccan climates. The performance of these techniques is assessed using key energy, environmental and economic (3E) metrics. To this aim, several simulations are conducted using EnergyPlus software. Furthermore, the impact of carbon taxation on each technique's economic benefits is examined. The results reveal that the PV and PVT technologies exhibit the greatest outcomes for the 3E perspectives in all climates; the excellent performance is achieved in the desert climate while the lowest one is found in the Mediterranean climate. Moreover, GSHP and GR techniques show significant energy and environmental benefits, but they prove to be economically inefficient in all considered climatic zones. Generally, the carbon payback periods are found in the range of 0.59-0.84, 1.07-1.25, 0.67-3.71 and 3.66-6.22 years, whereas the levelized cost of energy are within the range of 0.027-0.039, 0.030-0.035, 0.209-1.149 and 0.226-0.383 $/kWh for PVT, PV, GSHP and GR, respectively. On the other hand, levying a carbon tax of $75/tCO2e could increase the savings-to-investment ratio, on average, by around 61.42%, 60.32%, 59.60% and 51.53%, sequentially, for PVT, PV, GSHP and GR. Besides, the results of this paper could be applied to other locations worldwide with similar climates, energy prices and CO2 emission factors.