The Modelling of Photovoltaic, Solar Thermal, and Photovoltaic/Thermal Domestic Hot Water Systems

Solar heating of potable water has traditionally been accomplished through the use of solar thermal (ST) collectors. With the recent increases in availability and lower cost of photovoltaic (PV) panels, the potential of coupling PV solar arrays to electrically heated domestic hot water (DHW) tanks has been considered. Additionally, innovations in the SDHW industry have led to the creation of photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) collectors, which heat water using both electrical and thermal energy. The current work compared the performance and cost-effectiveness of a traditional solar thermal (ST) DHW system to PV-solar-electric DHW systems and a PV/T DHW system. To accomplish this, a detailed TRNSYS model of the solar hot water systems was created and annual simulations were performed for 250 L/day and 325 L/day loads in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Halifax, and Calgary. It was shown that when considering thermal performance, PV-DHW systems were not competitive when compared to ST-DHW and PVT-DHW systems. As an example, for Toronto the simulated annual solar fractions of PV-DHW systems were approximately 30%, while the ST-DHW and PVT-DHW systems achieved 65% and 71% respectively. With current manufacturing and system costs, the PV-DHW system was the most cost-effective system for domestic purposes. The capital cost of the PV-DHW systems were approximately $1,923-$2,178 depending on the system configuration, and the ST-DHW and PVT system were estimated to have a capital cost of $2,288 and $2,373 respectively. Although the capital cost of the PVT-DHW system was higher than the other systems, a Present Worth analysis for a 20-year period showed that for a 250 L/day load in Toronto the Present Worth of the PV/T system was approximately $4,597, with PV-DHW systems costing approximately $7,683-$7,816 and the ST-DHW system costing $5,238.

Retro-Neoliberalism: Elite Counter-Protest in Latin America, 1940-1975

This research challenges the origin story of neoliberalism in Latin America. Drawing on archival data from the Mont Pèlerin Society and the personal archives of leading but neglected figures in the post-war push to rebuild economic liberalism, I present a historical geography of elite counter-protest that both predates and broadens the generally accepted “birth” of neoliberalism in 1970s Chile. Beginning in the 1940s, Latin American elites found common cause with key figures from economic liberalism’s most radical wing: the Austrian School. While existing literature links the onset of neoliberalism in Chile to the Austrian School, particularly with respect to the School’s influence on the early Mont Pèlerin Society, this dissertation is the first comprehensive inquiry to place the Austrian tradition in the ideational and organizational landscape of Latin America. Embracing a new mission that promised to save the soul of Western civilization, Latin America’s retro-neoliberal leaders collaborated with transnational actors to build a network of Austrian-inspired think-tanks and institutes of higher learning in the region. These organizations, in turn, served as recruiting mechanisms to found the Hispanic quarter of the Mont Pèlerin Society, which was dominated not (as might be assumed) by Chileans, but rather by retro-neoliberal elites from Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, and Venezuela. By 1975, when scholars began analyzing how a run-of-the-mill economics department had been transformed into a bastion of free-market thinking in Chile, an entire neoliberal university was up and running in Guatemala, exposing all students, regardless of discipline, to the Austrian tradition – the crowning achievement of Latin America’s retro-neoliberal network. Investigating, and accounting for, the development and impact of this initiative sheds new light on the neoliberal landscape in Latin America, and raises important questions for the study of neoliberalism more broadly.