Investigation of a Low/Zero Carbon Energy Technology using Solar Thermal for Buildings

This paper investigates the use of solar thermal for buildings as a technology for low or zero carbon energy. Statistics show that a number of countries have adopted the technology and over 472 GWh of thermal power generated with 135 million tons of CO2 emissions successfully mitigated. The solar technology is responsible for about 22% of the global total energy and is estimated to replace some of the non-renewable sources of energy like coal by 2050. However, there are a number of barriers hindering the development and installation of solar heating and cooling systems in buildings including the high initial costs and lack of both interest and technical knowledge. Also, there a number of current technical developments in this technology including future ones like the use of Hetero-Epitaxial solar cell and Liquid filter with Plasmonic Nanoparticles.