Crazy talk! (and I mean that in the most positive way!)
If you set up everything perfectly, I don't reckon the solar gain would track perfectly with the heat output of the inverter however... if you think of this window oriented to match the PV array panels, they are making some juice (and waste heat) when there isn't a "direct solar gain" but they're still getting energy when the sun is out of the line of sight. I imagine there's some degree of "standby" power / heat gain as well when the PV panels are asleep at night.
Still set up well it could be a decent & quick stand-in for a more laborious 8760 schedule calculation to crunch and push into the model.
Once upon a time I lamented that transformers losses specified at the meter in eQUEST can't be attributed to a space/zone... Didn't foresee this potential application as I was focused on quantifying "premium efficiency" transformer savings, but alas I suspect that feature remains on the back burner.
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Nick Caton, P.E., BEMP
Senior Energy Engineer
Regional Energy Engineering Manager
Energy and Sustainability Services
Schneider Electric
D 913.564.6361
M 785.410.3317
F 913.564.6380
E nicholas.caton at schneider-electric.com
15200 Santa Fe Trail Drive
Suite 204
Lenexa, KS 66219
United States
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Man, you guys got my gears turning on this one.
There is apparently a BIPVT system where the airgap behind the PV panel is an air enclosure that builds up heat which can, in turn, be used to heat the building (or aid in the heat recovery process).
Perhaps at some point they will design these inverters with an optional manifold that could exhaust the waste heat to a small diameter duct that could tie into a BIPVT system and improve heat recovery even more.
I'm thinking the only way to retain the inverter heat in your case would be to have the inverter fans blowing into a small enclosure that has thru-flow to the return side of the HRV system (or at least have the inverters exhausting into a BIPVT type enclosure or duct that is already tied into the HRV).
Modeling it would be interesting.
I did read a scientific paper about how they conducted testing and simulations of Air-Type PVT systems coupled with HRV to compare the results to a baseline without the Air-Type PVT. Sounded pretty sweet.
I can forward it to you if you're curious.
Chris Baker
CCI Alliance of Companies
Fort Wainwright, Alaska
907-356-1681 (x105) office
907-750-4922 cell