Development and evaluation of solar heating solutions for Villages in the highlands of Peru

Sammanfattning: In the Peruvian highlands, hundreds of thousands of people live in dwellings that are completely unheated. In this climate, nighttime indoor temperatures during the winter could be as low as 0°C. Indoor cold can cause thousands of respiratory diseases and increase winter mortality. The most natural solution to this problem would be to install some passive or active heating solution to increase indoor temperatures at night. The purpose of this thesis was to develop and evaluate active solar heating solutions for buildings in these regions. At altitudes of 3500 meters above sea level (m.a.s.l.) and higher, this type of research is limited, especially when it comes to mechanical heating systems. The first step of the process was to investigate this previous research and after that, field work was performed in the Peruvian Andes. Based on this literature review and the field work, four solar heating systems were developed and modelled in EnergyPlus. These models were then used to determine the performance of the different systems and how they impacted the indoor environment. After that, their installation costs were estimated, and their cost relative performance was compared. Ultimately their life cycle costs were calculated, and a sensitivity analysis was performed. These solar heating systems were also compared to a fifth system that used grid electricity and electrical heaters to heat the building. Proposal #2 was deemed the best overall. It had a strong performance and was the cheapest to install, after the option that only uses electrical heaters. It also had the lowest life cycle cost, making it a solid option. However, proposal #4 was the only one able to operate without grid electricity, making it a good option for some cases. The ultimate goal of this thesis is for these proposals to gain interest in Peru so that some organization is willing to fund their construction.