Sunhome Oberburg

100% solar-thermally heated apartment buildings

Apartment building with solar system on roof — One of three entirely solar-thermally heated sun homes in Oberburg (Emmental), Switzerland.

Gesamter Solarpark in Oberburg mit den 3 Sonnenhäusern und dem Fabriksgebäude — Solarpark Jenni in Oberburg

A roof full of thermal solar panels, an energy cylinder with over 108.000 liters in volume integrated into the building as well as an intelligently regulated heat management concept ensure that the house has enough warmth for rooms and domestic hot water even in the coldest winter times, without additional energy sources. The well insulated apartment buildings produce so much solar energy between march and November, that the neighboring buildings, a residential building and a production facility measuring 12.000 m², can be supplied with excess heat. Thanks to the success of these three buildings, three more are planned. Real estate has been purchased in early 2017, and the building application has already been submitted.

A freely programmable universal controller UVR16x2 serves to regulate the solar circuits and the innovative management of the cylinder. This mostly concerns the supplying and extraction of heat into and out of the cylinder, which reaches all heights of the building, in accordance with its layers. This means that, depending on temperatures, heat from the thermal collectors is supplied into the cylinder on different points across all of its height, as well as extracting heat from different heights. This maximizes solar yield. As for supplying neighboring buildings with excess heat, a CAN-I/O controls pumps for a pipeline. The Control and Monitoring Interface C.M.I. serves to visualize, log data and as a port for requesting of district heating via CAN-Bus. The analytical software Winsol is used to evaluate data.

Controllers

Energy generation

1 x 276 m² flat solar collectors integrated into the roof (Solar Apt. B. 1)
2 x 160 m² flat solar collectors integrated into the roof (Solar Apt. B. 2+3)

Consumers

3 apartment buildings with app. 950m² heated residential space each, split into 8 apartments
1 single-family house
1 production facility with 12.000 m² heated space

Heat accumulation

1 x 205.000-liter buffer cylinder with integrated boiler (Solar Apt. B. 1)
2 x 108.000-liter buffer cylinder with integrated boiler (Solar Apt. B. 2 + 3)

Overview of references

This project was realized by:
Jenni Energietechnik AG
Lochbachstrasse 22
3414 Oberburg bei Burgdorf, Schweiz
www.jenni.ch