Renewable Energy 152 (2020) 1403e1413

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Impact a combination of geothermal and solar energy systems on

building ventilation, heating and output power: Experimental study
Rania Elghamry a, b, Hamdy Hassan a, c, *
a
Energy Resources Eng. Depart, Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST), Alexandria, Egypt
b
Architecture Eng. Depart, Faculty of Eng., Tanta University, Tanta, Egypt
c
Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Eng., Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents an experimental investigation of building room heating and ventilation by using a
Received 29 August 2019 combination of solar chimney and geothermal air tube heat exchanger. The geothermal tube is used to
Received in revised form supply the room with fresh and heated air that is extracted inside the room by the chimney at the room
26 December 2019
top surface. Photovoltaic panel (PV) is installed inside the chimney to produce power and its perfor-
Accepted 22 January 2020
Available online 25 January 2020
mance is compared with PV installed outside the room. The system is studied for the chimney with and
without PV and at inclination angle 30
and 45
. Natural ventilation and heating systems are compared
with forced air flow inside the geothermal tube. The studied room locates in New Borge-Alarb, Alex-
Keywords:
Room
andria, Egypt. Results indicate that natural geothermal tube-solar chimney at angle 45
raises the room
Heating and ventilation temperature by 6.4
C and changes daily its air 46 times which represents 55.5% of the ventilated air by
Solar chimney the forced air flow at 0.0184 m3/s. Heated and ventilated air of the room at chimney at of an angle 45

Geothermal air tube with PV is greater than the case of 30
. Maximum PV power inside the chimney is obtained at 30
which
Photovoltaic represents 86.7% of the maximum PV power outside the chimney.
Temperature © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction technologies. Passive techniques like optimizing the solar gain by

It is known that buildings consume approximately 40% of the
global energy, especially in developing countries. Therefore, a good
understanding of the nature and structure of energy use in buildings
is crucial for establishing the future of the energy consumption and
climate change policies [1]. Egypt is one of the countries which
suffers from energy shortage because it is not rich with oil as many
other oil-producing countries in the Middle East [2,3]. Moreover, due
to climate changes over all the world, which produces lower tem-
perature in winter and hotter temperature in summer which
demanding building heating and cooling. Renewable energy is the
most important energy source available on-site. Therefore, the
application of renewable energy can play an important role in
covering the energy demand for heating and cooling of buildings [4].
One of the main concepts to diminish energy consumption in
buildings is using both passive and active renewable energy
* Corresponding author. Energy Resources Eng. Depart, Egypt-Japan University of
Science and Technology (E-JUST), Alexandria, Egypt.
E-mail addresses: hamdyaboali@yahoo.com, hamdy.aboali@ejust.edu.eg
(H. Hassan).
adjusting the building direction to create comfortable internal
conditions and decrease the consumed electrical energy within the
buildings [5,6]. Otherwise, the active strategy creates more energy
efficient heating, ventilation, air conditioning systems, hot water
production, lighting and fulfill human requirements on a
comfortable environment [7].
Various theoretical, experimental and numerical studies were
conducted on the integration between the active and passive saving
energy systems in building that can enhance the building ventila-
tion which in turn works on the heating or cooling indoor spaces.
Passive techniques like solar chimney, Trombe wall, and
geothermal air tubes and active such as photovoltaic represent ones
of the more effective techniques that work to enhance the building
performance. Recent studies have examined these techniques
separately or attempted to integrate them into various patterns to
reduce building energy consumption and improve their interior
conditions. It is found that the integration of passive and active
solar design elements is vital to accomplishing the required energy
efficiency inside the buildings [8].
Solar chimney (SC) is an excellent and inexpensive passive
system that pulls the outside air inside the building for its

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2020.01.107
0960-1481/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1404 R. Elghamry, H. Hassan / Renewable Energy 152 (2020) 1403e1413
ventilation, cooling or heating. Moreover, the solar chimney can
regulate the temperature in other applications and devices like
solar cells [9,10], desalination and power generation [11], air con-
ditioning systems [12], etc. When solar radiation falls inside the
chimney, the column of air inside the chimney is heated and this
heated air is pulled up through the opened vent at the top of the
chimney pulling new air from the outside and creating a sort of
draft called "chimney effect" [13]. Many studies on using solar
chimney in building ventilation were presented [14]. The optimum
shape and the system characteristics of the solar chimney were
investigated experimentally, analytically, and numerically by Bou-
chair [15]. His results illustrated that air ventilation by the chimney
cavity can be performed to certain values of the chimney inlet
width. The performance of a solar chimney in an office building
heating is investigated analytically by examining the impact of the
air gap width. The results showed the advantage of the solar
chimney as a passive heating device, which reduces the heating
load by about 20% [16]. Bassiouny and Koura [17] presented a nu-
merical analysis on the design parameters of the solar chimney;
inlet size and width and their impact on the room ventilation. It is
found from their analysis that the chimney width has a more
effective impact on the room air change compared to the chimney
inlet size. Ahmed et al. [18] presented a theoretical study on the
optimum design parameters of the chimney to perform the opti-
mum rate of the ventilation induced by the chimney effect. The
study illustrated that, at a rate of the air varying from 0.019 to
0.033 m3/s, it achieves 88.2% of the standard ventilation rate during
the daytime at solar chimney inclination angle 45
, width of 0.6 m,
length of 1.4 m, and air gap 0.2 m. Using solar chimney in building
cooling and heating considering room configuration was presented
theoretically by Shi [19]. It is found that the impact of the room
configurations on the chimney performance couldn’t be neglected.
The air flow rate under heating mode was found not only depen-
dent on cavity height, but also the opening height of the room. The
impact of wind speed on the performance of solar chimney within a
building was studied by Shi [20]. He stated that the effects of wind
cannot be ignored in the performance of SC where higher wind
speed does not represent a better solar chimney performance,
which is dependent on the wind angle between the direction of the
wind and normal to the wall. Nguyen and Wells [21] investigated
using SC with horizontal absorber surface on building ventilation. It
was found that increasing of all examined factors (heat flux,
absorber surface length, width and height of the outlet and inlet
sections and air channel gap) improves the flowrate but has min-
imal impact on the SC thermal efficiency.
Another way to enhance the building heating system and reduce
its energy consumption is the geothermal air systems. The
geothermal air tube is a long heat exchanger tube embedded un-
derground through which air is drawn. As air flows through the
tube, it receives some of its heat from/to the surrounding soil and
enters the building as conditioned air for the heating, cooling and
ventilation purposes. Moreover, geothermal energy is not depen-
dent on weather influences and can supply heat and electricity
almost continuously throughout the cold period of the year [22].
Rad et al. [23] studied theoretically the overall system performance
of hybrid ground heat source with solar thermal collectors’ system
in heating purpose for cold climates spaces in Canada. Their results
demonstrated that the solar thermal energy storage in the ground
could decrease a large amount of ground heat exchanger length.
The cost of the proposed hybrid system decreased from 3.7% to 7.6%
compared to the conventional system. Serageldin [24] presented a
numerical study for the thermal performance of an earth-air heat
exchanger using ANSYS Fluent software to predict the air and soil
temperature. Their results found that the air temperature declines
when the geothermal pipe diameter and length augments. As an
example, the outlet air temperature reduces from 20.4
C to 18.7
C
when the pipe diameter rises from 4.25 to 6.75 cm. Furthermore,
the augmentation of the air velocity to a certain limit may reduce
the heat transfer rate from the soil to the flowing air resulting in a
decrease of the residence time required for the thermal energy
exchange. Kashkooli [25] reviewed briefly the utilization of
geothermal energy in building heating and cooling. Additionally,
the history of district heating by geothermal energy in different
parts of the world is studied. Saaly et al. [26] assessed the feasibility
of using geothermal pile foundation for the heating and cooling
energy demand. Results signified that by increasing the length of
the piles to 12 m, 20e41% of the heat demand of the building can be
supplied in the winter. Liu et al. [27] presented an experimental
study on the cooling and heating performance of vertical
geothermal air tube. They showed that for summer cooling of
buildings, the outlet air temperature of this system ranged from
22.4
C to 24.2
C as the air flow velocity set at 1.0 m/s.
Moreover, the integrated PV panel has a significant influence on
the heat transfer through the building envelope and energy con-
sumption within the building. The performance of a multi-
operational ventilated photovoltaic and solar air collector system
and its contribution towards the space and ventilation heating
energy demand of a specific building has demonstrated by Cartmell
et al. [28]. The study outcome ensured that the building perfor-
mance can be optimized. Wang et al. [29] simulated and compared
the performance of three different Building Integrated Photovoltaic
(BIPV) roofs where the conventional roof was studied based on
one-dimensional transient model. Simulation results indicated that
the PV performance and the change of the heating and cooling
loads depend on many parameters, such as roof insulation level,
roof solar absorptivity and local climate. Moralejo et al. [30] pre-
sented the optical characterization of different PV solar cell tech-
nologies that are suitable for building integration as multi-
functional structural glasses. The results illustrated those good
properties of PV laminated allowing a feasible efficient integration
in building windows and façade in terms of daylighting and solar
control capabilities. Piccoli et al. [31] evaluated the PV performance
under different partial shading condition by using different
modeling approaches of a PV system. The study included a detailed
model with some simplifications in order to model the whole
system. The results showed how modeling the dynamic behavior of
the system helped in improving the temperature predictions. The
impact of integrating PV on building facade and roof on the interior
energy consumption, thermal comfort, CO2 emissions, etc. was
studied theoretically by Elghamry et al. [32]. They stated that PV on
the roof and walls decreased the annual energy consumption
within the building by 40% and 15%, respectively, compared to
building without PV.
Other works used a combination of two or more of these pre-
vious techniques in building heating, cooling and ventilation.
Maerefat and Haghighi [33] presented the use of solar chimney (SC)
together with Earth to Air Heat Exchanger (EAHE) on building
thermal comfort. The findings illustrated that the use of taller SCs
leads to thermal discomfort. Moreover, there is an optimum
diameter for cooling pipes (0.5 m) which gives the minimum
required number of SCs and EAHEs. Haghighi and Maerefat [34]
investigated the system design of solar chimney and earth-to-air
heat exchanger to face the thermal need in buildings regarding
adaptive thermal comfort criteria. The analysis result showed that
the solar chimney is able to power the underground heating system
during the hours of the sunny days even at the ambient tempera-
ture as low as 0
C. Li et al. [35] coupled passive energy system with
a solar collector enhanced solar chimney and an earth-to-air heat
exchanger. The indoor air temperature was maintained at a range of
21.3e25.1 C, while the indoor humidity ratio was maintained at a
 R. Elghamry, H. Hassan / Renewable Energy 152 (2020) 1403e1413 1405

range of 50e78%. They found that the coupled system provided an

acceptable amount of cooling capacity during the natural airflow.
Jakhar et al. [36] tested the thermal performance of EATHE coupled
with a solar air heating duct to enhance the heating capacity of
EATHE system. It was found that the heating capacity of EATHE
system got increased by about 1218e1281 kWh when it was
coupled with solar air heating duct with a substantial increase in
room temperature by about 1.1e3.5
C. Lucas et al. [37] evaluated
the thermal and electrical performance of a PV evaporative Chim-
ney. They concluded that the system can dissipate a thermal power
of about 1500 W with a thermal efficiency exceeding 30% in sum-
mer conditions. A parametric study on the performance of coupling
solar chimney and earth to air heat exchanger in building heating
and ventilation was presented theoretically by Serageldin et al.
[38]. They stated that the earth tube is the most effective parameter
followed by SC height. The optimum chimney inclination angle is
from 30 to 35
, length is from 1.94 to 1.97 m, width is from 0.92 to
0.97 m. Monghasemi and Vadiee [14] studied the integration of SC
configurations with an earth-air heat exchanger to improve the
level of thermal comfort. The study depends on the integration of
common systems "geothermal air tube and solar panel" based on
SC, where these systems enhance the thermal performance of SC
and extend its utilization usually for locations to achieve thermal
comfort. The result approved that the total cooling capacity of the
system almost covered the building design cooling load. Afrand
et al. [39] presented an energy and exergy analysis of a combined of
PV with earth to air heat exchanger integrated with a building. The
outcomes revealed that the annual rate of the thermal energy
extracted from the system cooled using the building exhaust air is
3499.59 KWh, electrical energy is 5908.19 KWh, and thermal
exergy is 5908.19 kWh.
Based on the previous survey and to the authors’ best knowl-
edge, no previous work was presented on the combination of more
than two renewable energy systems for the building heating and
ventilation. Therefore, in this work, an experimental study is pre-
sented on a combination consisting of the solar chimney and
geothermal air tubes for heating and ventilation of an interior
building room which was not presented before. At the same time,
the power required for some room activities is produced by inte-
grating the PV with inside the chimney as shown in Fig. 1 which
was not considered also before. The studied room locates at New
Borge Alarab city, Alexandria, Egypt of hot semi-arid climate con-
ditions. In this combination, the geothermal air tube is used to
supply the room with fresh and heated air. The heated air is Fig. 1. Experimental set up (a) model image and (b) model layout.
extracted inside the room by using a solar chimney installed at the
room top surface. Moreover, a PV panel is installed at the back of
renewable energy sources which decrease the fossil energy con-
the chimney surface to produce the power required for some of the
sumption within the building and decrease the global world
room activities. The study is carried out in case of the chimney
pollution and at the same time, it solves the ventilation problem of
facing the south at an angle with the horizontal of 30
and 45
as
the inside spaces that haven’t openings to the ambient. Moreover,
illustrated in Fig. 1a and b. The advantages of integrating the PV
the study is carried out for semi-arid climate conditions (Egypt,
inside the chimney are that it doesn’t need extra space to install the
Alexandria) which represents many cities at the Mediterranean Sea.
PV at the building. Furthermore, the PV represents an insulation at
the back surface of the solar chimney preventing the heat loss from
the chimney back surface to increase the chimney effect. The per- 2. Experimental work
formance of the system is studied in the case of the room is
completely closed except for the geothermal air tube and the solar Heating and natural ventilation on an interior building room in
chimney. Additionally, the system is studied for natural convection New Borge Alarb city, Alexandria, Egypt, with longitude and lati-
ambient air flow inside the geothermal tube by using the solar tude angles of 31.2
N and 29.91
E, respectively is investigated
chimney and forced ambient air flow inside the geothermal air tube experimentally as shown in Fig. 1. The room heating and ventilation
by using a blower which was not also presented before. Moreover, are carried out by using the extracted outside air inside the room by
the performance of the PV inside the chimney is compared to an the solar chimney which is heated inside the geothermal air tubes
identical PV locating outside the chimney and having the same by the hotter soil temperature. This experimental setup includes a
direction and inclination angle of the PV inside the chimney as wooden room of a square cross-sectional area of 2  2 m with a
stated in Fig. 1b. The importance of this study is that it could pre- height of 2 m and a wall thickness of 3 cm. The wooden room is
sent a contribution on the building heating and ventilation by using insulated as shown in Fig. 1a by a Styrofoam of low thermal
1406 R. Elghamry, H. Hassan / Renewable Energy 152 (2020) 1403e1413
conductivity of thickness 10 cm. The room has one door containing
a window of dimensions 0.8 m height by 0.8 m. However, in this
study, the window and door were considered closed and insulated
because the study is based on ventilation the room by using the
geothermal air tube as in case of interior building rooms which are
not opened to the ambient (open air) or haven’t window. A solar
chimney orienting to the south is installed at the roof of the room of
1.6 m long, 0.7 m wide and having air gap thicknesses of 0.3 m and
it is inclined with horizontal with an angle of 30
or 45
depending
on the studied case. The front side of the solar chimney is fabricated
from 4 mm thick glass to absorb the sunlight. In case of considering
the PV, the base of the chimney is a PV of type FSM-155W, length
1.6 m, width 0.7 m, thickness of 3.5 cm and having an operating
temperature range between 40
C to 85
C as indicated in Fig. 1b.
The other sides of the chimney and the base are fabricated from
metal and are insulated by a Styrofoam. The performance of the PV
is compared with another identical PV having the same inclination
angle of the solar chimney facing the south direction to measure
the effect of integration the PV inside the chimney on the PV per-
formance as illustrated in Fig. 1a and b. The used PV outside the
chimney is installed in a height near the height of the PV inside the
chimney and during the experimental measurements, it is found
that the falling incident solar energy on the two PVs is the same
during all the days’ time. The geothermal air system consists of a
serpentine horizontal heat exchanger tube fabricated from Polyvi-
nyl chloride (PVC) with inner diameter 0.0508 m (2 in) and total
length 5 m buried at a depth of 2 m inside the earth with the di-
mensions shown in Fig. 2. The part of the geothermal tube locating
outside the earth is insulated from the surrounding by an insulating
material.
2.1. Measured parameters
Different parameters are measured in this experimental study;
temperatures, air velocity, solar intensity, relative humidity, and PV
current, and volt. The temperatures inside the solar chimney and
geothermal systems at different positions are also measured, on the
surface of the room, inside the room and also the ambient tem-
perature. Inside the room, two points are measured through two
lines separated at two points at 1.5 m and at 0.5 m as shown in
Fig. 1b. The temperatures are measured by using thermocouples of
Fig. 2. Geothermal air tube.
type K. The air flow temperature is carried out at the inlet and
outlet of the solar chimney and at three points on the PV surface;
upper, center and lower. Furthermore, the temperatures at different
positions along the geothermal air systems are measured from the
entrance to the exit opening in the room. The output signals from
the thermocouples are transferred to a data acquisition system and
the output results from the acquisition system are registered inside
a computer as illustrated in Fig. 1b and all thermocouples are
calibrated at a constant temperature path using a standard ther-
mometer. The air velocity at solar chimney inlet and outlet, inside
the room at two positions, geothermal tube outlet and inlet and
wind velocity outside are measured by using hot wire anemometer
and at the same time by air velocity meter. The relative humidity
outside and inside the room is also measured by using air velocity
meter. The output volt and current from the PV are measured by
digital voltmeter and anemometer, respectively.
2.2. Results equations
The power of the PV is computed by measuring the PV output
current I and volt V, where the power P is computed from
Refs. [40,41]:
P¼IV (1)
where P in Watt, I in ohm and V in volts.
The daily air exchange ACH of the room in m3 is computed from
Refs. [42,43]:
X
ACH ¼ Avt (2)
day
where, A cross-sectional area of the chimney in m2, v is the inlet
velocity of the air to the chimney in m/s, and t is the time in
seconds.
The daily heat added to the room Q in W is calculated from the
heat stored in the room and the heat removed from the room due to
the room ventilation as follow [42,43]:
X
Q¼ V rCp ðTi  To Þ þ AvrtCp ðTi  To Þ (3)
day
where r is the air density in kg/m3, V is the room volume in m3, Cp is
the specific heat of air in J/kg.K, Ti is the air temperature inside the
room in K, To is the ambient temperature in K.
2.3. Uncertainty and error analysis
In this experimental work, the measured values “the experi-
mental error, accuracy, and uncertainty” are considered. The
experimental errors may be due to human using, instrumentations,
instruments, etc. During the experimental work preparations and
the measurements, all the necessary precautions are considered to
diminish these errors. Also, the thermocouples are calibrated
against a standard calibrated thermocouple and the error was in
the normal range where the deviation between the thermocouples’
readings and that of the standard one is from 0.1 to 0.5
C. The
uncertainties of the measured parameters of the different
measuring instruments in the experiments are shown in Table 1.
3. Results and discussions
The solar heating systems are among the best solution for the
current energy and environment issues. Moreover, it is essential to
human comfort inside the building and indoor air quality [46].
 R. Elghamry, H. Hassan / Renewable Energy 152 (2020) 1403e1413
Table 1
Uncertainty of the measuring instruments [44,45].
Measuring instrument Uncertainty value
Measuring temperature instrument ±0.4 C
data acquisition system



±0.1 C/ C
anemometer 0.1 m/s
air velocity meter 0.05 m/s
Voltmeter ±0.025%
Anemometer ±0.025%
Heating and ventilation of an interior room building is carried out
in this study by using geothermal air tube and solar chimney.
Table 2 shows the different studied cases of the geothermal air
tube-solar chimney-PV systems. Moreover, it includes the initial
cost of the used techniques (solar chimney-geothermal tube and
PV) and the cost of installation these systems within the buildings.
Table 2 shows that the system (PV þ SC and forced geothermal air
tube) has the highest initial and installation cost while the system
(SC and natural geothermal air tube) has the lowest initial and
installation cost. The present system is studied for two inclination
angles of the solar chimney 30
and 45
which is used to improve
the natural ventilation of the room buildings by using the drag force
of the heated air by the solar energy inside the chimney. Then, the
solar radiation incident on the solar chimney heats the air inside
the chimney resulting in a decrease of its density where flows up
inside the chimney extracting the ambient air to flow inside the
geothermal air tube where it is heated because of the higher
temperature of the hot underground soil. Then, it enters the room
for the required heating and ventilation purpose. Moreover, a PV is
installed inside the solar chimney (cases1 to 3 as stated in Table 2),
to supply the building with some of the required power for room
activities. Moreover, it acts as an insulation of the chimney and
traps its reflected heat inside the chimney. The different studied
systems for room heating and ventilation are illustrated in Table 2.
The performance of the studied systems is performed for natural
and forced air flow inside the geothermal air tube. In case of PV
integrated into the solar chimney with forced geothermal (case 2),
the suction of air flowing inside the air tube to the room is carried
out by an external low-speed blower at the inlet of the geothermal
air tube with an approximately flow rate of 0.0184 m3/s. This air
flow rate requires about 18 W of the blower power to pass this air
through the geothermal tube and exits the room and this power is
considered only in the case of forced air flow inside the geothermal
tube (case 2 in Table 2). The air velocity (flow rate) of the forced air
is chosen to be nearly constant and greater than the maximum air
velocity (flow rate) in case of natural convection air flow to be a
reference for the comparison. The measurements are performed
during the daytime from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and for four days
during the period from 13/01/2019 to 23/01/2019. The advantage of
this system is that it works during all different seasons and during
day and night times. For example, during winter days, the interior
soil temperature is greater than the ambient temperature and then
the air extracted by the solar chimney from the geothermal tube is
Table 2
Studied cases.
Case System
1 Solar chimney with PV and natural geothermal air tubes
2 Solar chimney with PV and forced geothermal air tubes
3 Solar chimney with PV and natural geothermal air tubes
4 Solar chimney and natural geothermal air tubes without PV
1407
used in room heating. However, in summer season, the soil tem-
perature is lower than the ambient and then with the same
method, the cold temperature inside the earth is used in building
cooling. Moreover, this system is used in building ventilation dur-
ing all seasons and day and night times. So, this system doesn’t
need control regulations for the interior building spaces.
3.1. Impact on ventilated air
Air exchange is an important parameter on the human comfort
and health and indoor air quality of any building. The impact of the
different studied cases of the ventilation system on the inlet air
velocity to the chimney with time is illustrated in Fig. 3. Fig. 3
demonstrates that the inlet air velocity to the chimney increases
with time from the morning until about 01:30 p.m. and then it
decreases because the solar chimney effect increases with
increasing the incident solar radiation as will be shown next. On the
other hand, it illustrates that the air velocity inlet to the solar
chimney in case of forced geothermal solar chimney is greater than
chimney with natural geothermal ventilation as proposed. More-
over, Fig. 3 indicates that in the case of natural geothermal, the air
velocity in the case of chimney without PV is greater than the case
of the chimney with PV because of the highest chimney effect in the
first case. This is due to that part of the solar energy falling on the
chimney is absorbed by the PV panel resulting in a reduction of its
chimney impact. Moreover, in case of natural geothermal, the inlet
air velocity in the case of the chimney of an inclination angle 45
is
greater than the case of 30
because increasing the chimney incli-
nation angle reduces the resistance force of the air to flow inside
the chimney. Moreover, the chimney effect in case of 45
is greater
than 30
because the PV at 30
extracts more solar radiation
because this is the latitude angle of the measured place which af-
fects negatively on the chimney effect. However, it is expected that
it will influence positively on the produced PV power as will be
seen later.
The hourly ventilated air quantity with time for the different
studied cases is demonstrated in Fig. 4 and the total daily ventilated
air from the room for the different studied cases is shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 4 demonstrates that the hourly ventilated hour for natural
geothermal air flow is greater in the case of chimney without PV
because of increasing the chimney effect as stated earlier. It is found
that the maximum hourly ventilated air in case of natural con-
vection without PV, with PV at 45
C and with PV at 30
represents
about 88%, 72% and 52%, respectively of the maximum forced
ventilated air. Fig. 5 illustrates that the daily ventilated air of the
natural geothermal coupled with solar chimney represents
374.2 m3 (46 times room volume), 289.17 m3 (36 times room vol-
ume) and 232.47 m3 (29 times room volume) for solar chimney
without PV, solar chimney with PV at 45
, and solar chimney with
PV at 30
, respectively. This means that the total daily ventilated air
by using natural convection of geothermal air tube represents 62%
and 77.3% for PV chimney at inclination angle 30
and 45
,
respectively compared to chimney without PV. Moreover, the total
Measuring Solar Initial Cost-
Date chimney Installation
inclination angle cost
13/01/2019 30
620$-90$
16/01/2019 30
720$-90$
19/01/2019 45
620$-90$
23/01/2019 45
220$-80$
1408 R. Elghamry, H. Hassan / Renewable Energy 152 (2020) 1403e1413

Fig. 3. Variation of the inlet air velocity to the solar chimney with time.

3.2. Impact on interior conditions

Another important impact of the used system on the room

Fig. 4. Hourly ventilated air for the different studied cases.
daily natural ventilated air in case of chimney without PV, chimney
with PV at 45
and chimney with PV at 30
represents 55.5%, 42.9%
and 34.4% of the forced daily forced ventilated air, respectively.
comfortable conditions is the interior temperature and relative
humidity. In this studied room which is totally closed and insulated
and insulated from the solar energy, the only source of the venti-
lation is the air extracted by the solar chimney through the
geothermal tube and mainly the heat is gained by the air heated
through the geothermal tube. Additionally, in this system, the
temperature of the air inlet to the room from the geothermal air
tube depends on different parameters that determine this tem-
perature. One parameter is the velocity of the air through the
geothermal air tube which is determined by the chimney effect in
case of natural convection air flow. Also, the ambient air temper-
ature and incident solar radiation on the earth and the chimney
plus the stored energy inside the soil and the geothermal air tube
design.
Fig. 6 demonstrates the impact of the combination system (solar
chimney and geothermal sir tube) on the variation of the temper-
ature rise inside the room with time. This figure illustrates that the
different studied cases attain a heating impact on the room

Fig. 5. Daily ventilated air for the different studied cases.

 R. Elghamry, H. Hassan / Renewable Energy 152 (2020) 1403e1413 1409

Fig. 6. Evolution of the temperature rise inside the room with time.

temperature during the daytime. Furthermore, it indicates that the system without PV, natural convection system with PV at 45
and
heating performance of the proposed combined system of all cases natural convection system with PV at 30
, respectively.
increases with time from the mooring until about 1:30 p.m. and The evolution of the relative humidity with time inside the
then it decreases with time until about 6:00 p.m. This is due to that room for all studied systems is illustrated in Fig. 7. This figure
at the starting, the higher storage energy of the surrounding soils is indicates that the relative humidity decreases from the mooring
transferred to heat the air due to the large surface of the geothermal until about 03:00 p.m. and then it increases with time because the
tube. With advancing the time at afternoon, this impact on the relative humidity augments with increasing the room tempera-
room temperature decreases due to decreasing the ambient inlet ture. By comparing the results of Figs. 6 and 7, it also noted that the
air and solar energy and stored energy inside the soil surrounding system with higher room temperature has lower relative humid-
the geothermal air tube. From the results, it is observed that the ity. Moreover, the maximum effect of the different studied sys-
heating effect of the forced geothermal with the solar chimney is tems on the relative humidity inside the room is about 25% and
the highest compared to other cases followed by the natural the relative humidity for all cases changes from approximately
geothermal with solar chimney without PV. This is due to the 45%e80% which suits the weather conditions of the coastal
higher forced air velocity inside the chimney in case of forced measuring place.
convection as will be shown later resulting in a higher airflow ve-
locity inside the geothermal air tube. This higher air velocity raises 3.3. Impact on added heat
the heat transfer between the air and the soil inside the geothermal
air tube resulting in a significant increase in the air temperature The amount of hourly added heat to the room for the different
and the heating performance of the geothermal air tube. It is noted studied cases of the heating systems is shown in Fig. 8 and the
that the natural convection geothermal air tube with the chimney total daily added heat to the room is illustrated in Fig. 9. Fig. 8
without PV has the highest heat gain compared to other natural illustrates that the hourly added heat to the room increases
systems. This is attributed to that in case of including the PV inside with time until 01:30 p.m. and then it decreases. This is due to
the chimney, PV decreases the chimney effect due to the absorbed that at the begin of the day, the heating effect and air flow ve-
heat by the PV resulting in a decrease of the air velocity through the locity of the different proposed systems increase as stated
geothermal tube. It is also noted that the case of natural geothermal
tube with solar chimney of an inclination angle 30
with PV has the
lowest heating gain compared to other cases. This is attributed to
that decreasing the chimney inclination angle raises the flow
resistance of the air through the system. Moreover, the PV with an
inclination angle 30
absorbs more solar intensity than the case of
45
as stated previously resulting in a decrease of the air velocity
through the geothermal tube compared to other studied systems.
The results reveal that the rate of the temperature decrease in the
afternoon in case of forced convection is greater than the natural
convection cases. This is attributed to that the higher energy
absorbed of the forced convection in the mooring which decreases
the soil stored energy surrounding the geothermal tube compared
to other cases. This leads to decreasing the heat transfer from the
soil to the air in the afternoon in case of forced convection
compared to other cases. Moreover, the findings indicate that the
maximum temperature gain inside the room is 7.2
C, 6.4
C, 5.1
C
and 4.3
C in case of forced convection system, natural convection Fig. 7. Evolution of room relative humidity with time.
1410 R. Elghamry, H. Hassan / Renewable Energy 152 (2020) 1403e1413

Fig. 8. Hourly heat added to the room.

Fig. 9. Daily heat added to the room.

Fig. 10. Variation of the solar intensity with time.

 R. Elghamry, H. Hassan / Renewable Energy 152 (2020) 1403e1413
previously. The maximum heat input to the room is achieved
approximately at 01:30 p.m. because of the highest solar in-
tensity and higher room temperature gain at this time as seen
previously. It is found that the forced convection system has the
maximum heat gain because it has the maximum air velocity and
the maximum temperature gain as stated earlier. Figs. 8 and 9
conclude the impact of the previously obtained results for the
air velocity and temperature rise gained inside the room where
the system has the lower temperature and air velocity has the
minimum heat gain. Fig. 9 demonstrates that the maximum daily
released heat is obtained for solar chimney with forced
geothermal air flow as expected and the minimum occurs at
natural geothermal with the solar chimney of inclination angle
30
. The results reveal that the total amount of the heat added to
the room by using natural convection of PV-solar chimney at 30

and PV-solar chimney at 45
represents nearly 45.7% and 64.6%,
respectively of the natural convection system without PV and the
later represents approximately 57.3% of the forced convection
system. From the previous results, it is found the capability of the
proposed system to heat and ventilate the proposed closed room
Fig. 11. Evolution of PV power with time for (a) PV outside chimney, and (b) PV inside the chimney.
1411
and it proves its capability compared to the forced convection
system.
3.4. Impact on PV power
The power PV output generally depends on the amount of the
incident solar radiation on the PV surface and the PV inclination
angle. Moreover, for the PV inside the chimney, its power depends
on the air velocity and temperature over the PV surface that
increasing the air velocity and decreasing flow air temperature
raise the PV output power. Fig. 10 illustrates the evolution of the
incident solar radiation with time at the measuring days. As indi-
cated in Fig. 10, the solar intensity increases from the morning until
it reaches its maximum value at about 01:30 p.m., then it decreases
with time until the end of the reading time. Although, the solar
intensity of the measurements’ days is approximately the same
where the maximum incident solar intensity is about 671 W/m2
and the maximum variations of the solar intensity between the
measuring days are about 35 W/m2. The evolution of the PV output
power with time for the different studied cases for the PV inside
1412 R. Elghamry, H. Hassan / Renewable Energy 152 (2020) 1403e1413
and PV outside the chimney is shown in Fig. 11a and b, respectively.
This figure illustrates that the PV output power follows the solar
intensity evolution trend where its power increases with time from
the morning until it reaches its maximum value at approximately
01:30 p.m. and then it declines with time. Also, these figures state
that the PV power outside the solar chimney is greater than the PV
power inside the chimney because of the impact of the solar
chimney glass which reflects some of the incident solar radiation.
Fig. 11a shows that the output power of PV outside the chimney
aren’t much different between the various studied cases because
the solar intensity doesn’t change greatly as stated in Fig. 10 and the
maximum PV output power is about 135 W. Fig. 11a also indicates
that in case of natural convection, the PV output power for incli-
nation angle 30
is greater than 45
because 30
represents the
latitude angle of the measured place despite the amount of venti-
lated air flow is greater in case of 45
as stated previously. That
states that the impact of the incident solar radiation on the PV
power is dominant compared to the amount of the natural venti-
lated air. For the same reason, it is found that the PV power inside
the chimney in case of forced convection is greater than the natural
convection cases. This attributed to the positive effect of the incli-
nation angle 30
and the higher air velocity cooling in case of forced
convection. It is found that, in case of PV inside the chimney, as
illustrate in Fig. 11b, the maximum PV power is 117 W which rep-
resents about 86.7% of the maximum PV power outside the chim-
ney. Fig. 11b indicates that the maximum variation of the PV output
power between the different studied ventilation and heating sys-
tems is about 19 W. If the blower power required to pass the air
inside the geothermal tube stated before in case of forced air flow
inside the geothermal tube is extracted from the PV power, then it
is found that the net PV power (PV power -blower power) in case of
forced air flow inside the geothermal tube is lower than the output
PV power for other studied natural cases. Moreover, the initial cost
and installation costs in Table 2 are applied, it is found that the
system that produces the highest ventilation and PV power
(SC þ PV þ geothermal tube forced) has the highest initial and
installation cost. Moreover, it is found that the increase of the PV
power due to using forced air flow inside the geothermal tube is
about 9.3% while the increase in the initial cost is 16.12%.
4. Conclusions
The impact of a combination of the geothermal air tube, solar
chimney on room heating and ventilation is carried out with and
without integrating the PV inside the chimney. Four cases are
studied and compared; forced geothermal air tube and solar
chimney included PV at chimney inclination angle 30
, natural
geothermal air tube and solar chimney without PV at chimney
inclination angle 45
, natural geothermal air tube and solar chim-
ney included PV at chimney inclination angle 30
, and finally nat-
ural geothermal air tube and solar chimney included PV at
inclination angle 45
. The findings conclude that the heating and
ventilation performance of natural geothermal with solar chimney
at inclination angle 45
is greater than the system performance for
geothermal tube with solar chimney at inclination angle 30
while
the PV output power is greater in case of inclination angle 30
than
45
. Moreover, the maximum total daily natural heating and
ventilated air are achieved in case of solar chimney without PV
while their daily minimum values occur in case of solar chimney
including PV at inclination angle 30
. The maximum temperature
rising inside the room is 7.2
C, 6.4
C, 5.1
C, and 4.3
C for forced
convection system, natural convection system without PV, natural
convection system with PV at 45
and natural convection system
with PV at 30
, respectively. The daily ventilated air of the natural
geothermal coupled with solar chimney represents 374.2 m3 (46
times room volume), 289.17 m3 (36 times room volume) and
232.47 m3 (29 times room volume) in case of solar chimney without
PV, solar chimney with PV at 45
, and solar chimney with PV at 30
,
respectively. The maximum variation of the PV output power inside
the chimney for the different studied ventilation systems is about
19 W. The maximum output PV power is 117 W representing about
86.7% of the maximum PV power outside the chimney. Finally, the
proposed passive renewable energy systems for ventilation and
heating building rooms proved their capability to heat an ventilate
the room compared to forced system plus it produces power. The
impact of the ambient conditions like wind speed on the perfor-
mance of the chimney effect for the present studied system opened
to the ambient could be studied.
Declaration of competing interest
We disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including
any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or
organizations that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived
to influence, this work.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Rania Elghamry: Investigation, Writing - original draft. Hamdy
Hassan: Supervision, Writing - review & editing.
Acknowledgment
It is a pleasure to acknowledge Ministry of Higher Education
(MoHE) of Egypt for providing a scholarship to conduct this study
as well as the Egypt Japan University of Science and Technology (E-
JUST) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for offer-
ing the facility, tools, and equipment needed to conduct this
research work.
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