Abstract
The aim of the solar water heater designed for Tahala grid project, is to provide renewable energy to the residents of Tahala village in southern of Morocco, our contribution as LERED* laboratory to this project consists of the creation of a novel solar water heater, with a long lifetime, high efficiency, reliability and quality, that uses solar concentration instead of direct exposition in the hope of reaching high temperatures even during cold weather and the winter season. In order to evaluate the performances of this new solar water heater, it was necessary to build a full-scale solar water heater test bench station, which allows to monitor the thermal station remotely, in order to start new experiments, measure various parameters such as cumulated thermal energy, the maximum reached temperature, efficiency, and so on, in order to compare the performances of each solar water heating technology in various weather conditions. In this study, we choose to test and compare three solar water heater technologies: water-in-glass evacuated tube collectors, selective surface flat-plate collectors, and the novel design that consists of a Fresnel mirrors concentrator with a water-in-glass evacuated tube collector with a dual sun tracking system. The result of experiments shows that under normal weather conditions, the Fresnel mirrors concentrator efficiency reached 48%, followed by the evacuated tube collector that have an efficiency of 42.3 %, and then come at the last position the flat-plate collector with an efficiency 36.3%.
Highlights
Nowadays all climate scientists have concluded that our planet is facing colossal environmental disasters, such as melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and desertification, all these phenomena are mainly linked to global warming that is caused by the increase in greenhouse gas emissions due to the increase in polluting industrial activities since the industrial revolution [1]
We chose solar water heaters as an application, to exploit solar thermal energy, and further on, we built a full-scale experimental station, to test three solar water heaters technologies: water-in-glass evacuated tube collectors [7,8], selective surface flatplate collectors [9,10] and Fresnel mirrors concentrator with a water-in-glass vacuum tube collector with a dual sun tracking system, to be able to compare and evaluate the performance of each one of them in various weather conditions, all over the year [11,12]
A solenoid valve is installed after each hot water circulating pump and activated only when the pump is energized, in order to avoid the unwanted circulation of hot water during the night or cold weather, caused by the thermosiphon effect due to the fact that the water temperature inside the storage tank is higher than the water temperature inside pipes and the evacuated tube collector on the roof, which can cause a lot of thermal energy losses
Summary
Nowadays all climate scientists have concluded that our planet is facing colossal environmental disasters, such as melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and desertification, all these phenomena are mainly linked to global warming that is caused by the increase in greenhouse gas emissions due to the increase in polluting industrial activities since the industrial revolution [1]. Depending on climate specifications of each geographic area, many renewable sources of energy solutions can be suggested [2,3], in order to solve the energy crisis, global warming, and climate change, one of the most abundant renewable sources of energy is solar energy [4], it can be exploited to produce thermal energy by using solar concentrators such as Fresnel mirrors concentrators [5] and parabolic trough collectors [6]. We chose solar water heaters as an application, to exploit solar thermal energy, and further on, we built a full-scale experimental station, to test three solar water heaters technologies: water-in-glass evacuated tube collectors [7,8], selective surface flatplate collectors [9,10] and Fresnel mirrors concentrator with a water-in-glass vacuum tube collector with a dual sun tracking system, to be able to compare and evaluate the performance of each one of them in various weather conditions, all over the year [11,12]
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