Optimal flow control of a forced circulation solar water heating system with energy storage units and connecting pipes

Abstract

This paper focuses on pump flow rate optimization for forced circulation solar water heating systems with pipes. The system consists of: an array of flat plate solar collectors, two storage tanks for the circulation fluid and water, a heat exchanger, two pumps, and connecting pipes. The storage tanks operate in the fully mixed regime to avoid thermal stratification. The pipes are considered as separated components in the system so as to account for their thermal effects. The objective is to determine optimal flow rates in the primary and secondary loops in order to maximize energy transfer to the circulation fluid storage tank, while reaching user defined temperatures in the water storage tank to increase thermal comfort. A model is developed using mainly the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The model is used to maximize the difference between the energy extracted from the solar collector and the combined sum of the energy extracted by the heat exchanger and corresponding energies used by the pumps in the primary and secondary loops. The objective function maximizes the overall system energy gain whilst minimizing the sum of the energy extracted by the heat exchanger and corresponding pump energy in the secondary loop to conserve stored energy and meet the user requirement of water tank temperatures. A case study is shown to illustrate the effects of the model. When compared to other flow control techniques, in particular the most suitable energy efficient control strategy, the results of this study show a 7.82% increase in the amount of energy extracted. The results also show system thermal losses ranging between 5.54% and 7.34% for the different control strategies due to connecting pipe losses.