Thermodynamic and environmental analyses of biomass, solar and electrical energy options based building heating applications

In this study, the biomass, solar, and electrical energy options based building heating are investigated and compared along with energy, exergy, sustainability, environmental, exergoenvironmental, enviroeconomic and exergoenviroeconomic analyses. All of the analyses are presented gradually to show the complete energy and exergy based advanced analyses. Eight different reference temperatures are considered which are varying from 4 degrees C to 7.5 degrees C with a temperature interval of 0.5 degrees C. The most efficient and sustainable energy option of the building is found to be solar energy, while biomass energy is the second one. Furthermore, according to environmental analysis, maximum 0.1599 kg-CO2 is released in a day for the solar energy option, while this value is 0.6082 kg-CO2 for the biomass energy, and 29.614 kg-CO2 for the natural gas fired electrical energy 4 degrees C reference temperature. In addition, among the energy options, solar and biomass energies have the best exergoenvironmental results in which exergetic results are taken into account. Finally, the maximum released CO2 prices in a day are determined at 4 degrees C reference temperature to be 0.0088 $, 0.0023 $, and 0.4294 $, while the corresponding exergoenvireconomic results are found as 0.0040 $, 0.000933 $, and 0.4294 $ for the biomass, solar, and electrical energy options, respectively. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.