Solar Hot Water Heating

Everyone knows about solar energy, but have you heard of solar heating? Solar heating is a simple and effective way to heat your home's water. It is clean, renewable, and best of all, it is free! While the installation cost might be more expensive, you will more than make it up with the money that you save each month on your energy bills. But how does solar heating work? Here is a great explaination provided by Solar Novus Today:

The technology relies on the sun’s radiation being absorbed by a “collector” to heat water in a thermal store. The collectors are the most critical system components and come in two main forms: flat plate and evacuated tube, although a third type, unglazed plastic, finds more specialised uses such as heating outdoor swimming pools. Flat plate designs are the most simple and are based on a thin sheet of metal, typically copper or aluminium, which absorbs the solar energy, backed by a fluid tubing system and placed in an insulated casing with a protective glass cover. Fluid is circulated through the tubing which absorbs heat from the collector and transports it to the thermal store.

Evacuated tube types are more complex and costly and the absorber material is located in an evacuated and pressure-proof glass tube. The heat transfer fluid flows through the absorber and several single tubes, serially interconnected, or tubes connected to each other via a manifold, make up the collector.

Solar thermal systems may be classified as active or passive; the former uses an electric pump to circulate the heat transfer fluid whereas a passive system has no pump and relies on convection. Some active systems minimise power consumption by using a small PV panel to power the pump. Systems are also characterized as open-loop (direct) or closed-loop (indirect). An open-loop system circulates household water through the collector whilst a closed-loop system uses a heat transfer fluid (e.g., water or dilute antifreeze) to collect heat and a heat exchanger to transfer it to the household water. 

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