PhD student - Renewable Energy Systems

The PhD student will perform research in developing, analysing and optimizing a new concept and equipment, the adaptive Radiative Collector and Emitter (ad-RCE), capable to collect solar energy during the daytime to produce heat and also produce cold during daytime and night-time by means of radiative cooling. The new ad-RCE device combines both heat and cold production from renewable sources for buildings and industrial applications, adapting the heat and cold production to the demand profiles by its capacity to produce either heat or cold during the daytime. The objective will be to prove the viability of the equipment and determine its potential to produce cold and heat to be implemented in both buildings and industry. For such purpose, newly developed daytime radiative cooling materials, which reflect almost all incident solar radiation while emitting thermal radiation to outer space, will be used in combination with conventional solar collectors. The behaviour of the new equipment will be experimentally tested and characterized and validated numerical models will be developed to simulate the equipment. By means of these models, the effect of different improvements and optimizations in both the equipment and the whole system will be analysed. The capacity of the system to adapt to the cold and heat requirements for different applications will be determined. Finally, the technical, economic, and life cycle viability of the system will be studied.