Potential Application of Solar Power Systems for Residential Buildings in High-Density Urban Pattern: The Case of the Eixample District, City of the Barcelona, in Spain

摘要

The Importance of energy saving is one of the highlights of buildings environment during recent years. In order to improve the energy performance in residential dwellings, in countries with remarkable solar irradiation resource as a key issue for sustainable urban development, the usage of solar water-heating and photovoltaic systems are inevitable. The city of Barcelona with available an average solar radiation of about 1500 kWh/m~2/year has a potential to produce significant amount of energy. This paper deals with collecting and analyzing the energy consumption data of four different blocks with approximately 640 inhabitants each in Eixample area-Barcelona and employing of a solar power as a water-heating and photovoltaic system instead of natural gas and electricity. The paper concludes with a discussion and suggestion of possible substitution energy resource scenarios to illustrate how the system may be improved at level of economics and energy saving to assist targeting of urban environment, in limited availability of fossil energy resources, climate change problems and economic crisis worldwide.