Cambrian College has concluded a pilot project for Sudbury-based Renewable Resource Recovery Corp. for a patent pending technology that harnesses waste energy from solar panels, increasing efficiency by 15-20 per cent, reducing hydro bills and generating new income streams.
“Basically, you’re getting two products for the price of one,” said Steve Gravel, Cambrian’s applied research developer. “Co- generation of electricity and heat is a popular trend in the sustainable green energy market. The capacity to generate electricity while heating air and water provides two usable products. Often, cost is the major barrier to installing solar panels, but co-generation makes solar installations more cost-effective and attractive.”
Gravel adds that the project provides Renewable Resource Recovery Corp. with a well- designed heat recovery system, as well as solid empirical validation of the system’s efficiency.
The @Source-Energy wall is a precast, pre-stressed concrete wall panel with photovoltaic (PV) panels cast into its face and a thermal heat recovery system embedded in the concrete behind the PV panels. It generates electricity, which can be used at the source or sold to the electrical grid, providing a revenue stream to its owners.
“Photovoltaic cells normally have a solar conversion efficiency of between 15 and 27 per cent, said John Hood, Renewable Resource Recovery’s vice-president of research and development. “The balance of the energy is converted to waste heat. This technology captures that waste energy and returns it to heat the building through a heat pump. In hot weather, the heat can be stored in a ground thermal energy storage system, which can be used to heat the building during cold weather.”
The demonstration project was funded by a grant of $25,000 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
