Document Type

Article

Rights

Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Disciplines

Civil engineering

Publication Details

L.M. Ayompe, A. Duffy. Thermal performance analysis of a solar water heating system with heat pipe evacuated tube collector using data from a field trial. Solar Energy (2013): 90; 17-28.

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the thermal performance of a solar water heating system with heat pipe evacuated tube collector using data obtained from a field trial installation over a year in Dublin, Ireland. An automated sub‐system was developed and incorporated to control the hot water draw‐offs and electric immersion heater to mimic the operation of solar water heating systems in domestic dwellings. The maximum recorded collector outlet fluid temperature was 70.3oC while the water temperature at the bottom of the hot water tank was 59.5oC. The annual average daily energy collected was 20.4 MJd‐1, energy delivered by the solar coil was 16.8 MJd‐1, supply pipe loss was 3.6 MJd‐1, solar fraction was 33.8%, collector efficiency was 63.2% and system efficiency was 52.0%. Reducing the supply pipe losses which represented 17.7% of energy collected and 21.5% of energy delivered to the hot water tank, and developing a better pump control strategy for heavily overcast and intermittent cloud covered days could result in system improvement.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2013.01.001

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