System Node Mass Flow 0 when connecting PVT air to ERV
I want to simulate a facade-integrated PVT solar collector which preheats the outdoor supply air for the ERV energy recovery ventilation system (heat exchanger:airToAir:sensibleAndLatent). There is no other heating/cooling/plant/HVAC system in my single room model, located here for reference: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xjbpu33iqu4....
The file runs with the warning, that my 'SolarCollectorPerformance:PhotovoltaicThermal:Simple' object is unused, and the simulation results give 0 kg/s system node mass flow rate for the PVTinlet. I assume, that my PVT is not properly referenced in the outdoor air ERV system, however, I'm not sure how to solve it. I've used the 'shopwithsimplePVT.idf' sample file for reference. That file, however, comes with an AirLoopHVAC system, which my ERV does not have. In that reference, the PVT collector is referenced in 'airLoopHVAC:OutdoorAirSystem:EquipmentList'. Since my ERV system (which I made based on another EnergyPlus sample idf) does not require this, I tried to reference the PVT collector in 'ZoneHVAC:EquipmentList'. However, the PVT solar collector does not appear there as an object type. Hence, for now, the PVTinlet (which is the outdoor air inlet of the PVT collector), is only mentioned in the PVT object and in the NodeList.
How should I further link my PVT collector to my ERV system, or is there another problem I am overseeing? Do I need to add the entire AirLoopHVAC system with branch and outdoorAirMixer as in the sample file to my simple ERV system? Any help on this is greatly appreciated!
Where is the HX referenced? Oh, I see, the ERV.
Added a suggestion for improvement to EnergyPlus at https://github.com/NREL/EnergyPlus/is...