Background
Transforming today’s centralized energy systems into decentralized energy systems based on renewable energy is one of the most important contributions to achieving carbon neutrality. The European Commission has set the goal of becoming climate-neutral by 2050. At the national level, Austria has set an even more ambitious target: achieving carbon neutrality by 2040.
Heating accounts for the largest share of households’ total energy consumption. According to Statistics Austria (Statistics Austria, 2023), it makes up around 70%, and the buildings sector therefore offers significant potential for decarbonization through improved energy efficiency and renewable technology solutions.
Project Objectives
In recent years, numerous studies (Kersken et al., 2023; Wolf et al., 2020) have examined TABS as short-term storage and their combination with fluctuating renewable energy, and the contribution TABS systems can make.
The use of TABS in concrete is already well researched and, in practice, is moving toward a standard in multi-story residential construction, especially in eastern Austria. By contrast, TABS in wood-based structures has only a few implementation projects to date (Auenwerkstatt Salzburg, Multifunctional Façade Salzburg University of Applied Sciences) and no implementation in multi-story residential construction so far. Initial studies have shown that TABS can be implemented in timber structures and can achieve high thermal energy storage potential (Heidenthaler, Leeb, Schnabel, and Huber, 2021).
A real-world demonstration of TABS in timber structures has only been carried out on a small scale as a test system to verify suitability, and it was successful. Accordingly, the next step is a full-scale demonstration on a residential building. On the one hand, the approach addresses further development of the TRL level of timber-based activation and, on the other hand, the system combination of short-term storage via TABS (hours to days) and long-term storage via hydrogen systems coupled with volatile renewable generation.
The first-time combination of TABS (specifically TABS in timber) as short-term storage, hydrogen storage as long-term storage, a heat pump that uses wastewater heat recovery as its source, and photovoltaic systems as the energy supplier represents an innovative and promising carbon-neutral energy supply concept with strong potential for broader future application. The goal is to develop and implement an innovative, carbon-neutral district concept with various sustainable energy and building services components.
Specifically, the project plans to develop a sustainable district-level energy concept that includes a wastewater-source heat pump and a photovoltaic system. A central element is the carbon-neutral timber demonstration building. The building will be equipped with TABS in mass timber and will combine innovative energy concepts such as wastewater heat recovery, large photovoltaic arrays, and a hydrogen system for seasonal energy storage.
Expected Results
ey results from the simulation models include
> Energy balances
> Delivered energy by energy carriers and sources
> Thermal comfort
> System costs
> Energy costs
> Product life-cycle costs
> Results on simplified prefabrication and installation
> Operational monitoring data