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Residential Wind Power
Solar Thermal Collectors
WINDerFUEL |
The following is an 'REC Living with Energy' magazine interview with Butler County REC memeber Jeff Matt, who has recently installed a solar thermal system that collects heat from the sun to heat water and provide supplemental heat in is home. Can you describe your solar thermal collector and the hot water storage tank? (size, materials, capacity, size and number of panels, etc…) We have 7 evacuated tube collectors that are rated at 1,000 watt per collector. Each collector has 20 evacuated tubes. The mass storage is basically a block tank that measures 5’ x 5’ x 18’ using Durisol blocks. The thermal mass is located under our solarium. The blocks are a recycled wood composite that have insulating properties similar to foam or polystyrene without the need for a large construction crew to install. The tank mass storage holds approximately 3,000 gallons of water. The water mass holds about 24,000 Btu of heat for each degree of water temperature change. That’s not counting the concrete in the mass storage tank itself which gives the mass a total of around 50,000 lbs. FYI 1 lb of water change one deg F is one btu. 1 Kw = 3412 Btu Why did you install this system? My goal is to prove that you can save heat from the summer and use it in the winter. With one change to my thermal mass storage medium I believe that this system could hold all the heat that would be needed to provide hot water and heat for our home through the winter. When did you install it? We started construction spring of 2003 and populated the collectors January of 2004. Where did you purchase it? The Collectors came from BTF Solar out of Michigan. Most of the pumps, valves, and hardware were bought off of E-Bay. Controllers were bought on line. What did you learn by installing it yourself? I learned numerous little things that need to be done to make the system operate efficiently. By designing and building the system from scratch you need to work through and learn all the parts of the system and work through problems that arise that were unforeseen at the start of the project. The only way to really know a system like this is to build it and live with it for a time so that you can modify the design for the best performance. My system is designed differently than most solar collector systems in that my design uses multiple closed loop circuits with the collectors directly connected to the load bypassing the mass if the collectors are running at the time of a demand in a particular circuit. I believe that makes this design unique. What type of liquid is used to collect the heat? A water glycol mix. How long do you expect the tank to last? Forever. Do you have to do any routine maintenance on the system? None. Have you needed to replace any parts in the tank or collector? No. Was it hard to find replacement parts? Most all of the parts could be purchased at a local heating contractor or on line How do you monitor the system to know if it’s working? We have two controllers, one to control the solar circuit and one to control the water heater circuit. The controllers have temperature readings so I can monitor all parts on the system at any time. How much noise does the system make? None, a 70 watt pump circulates the water when the temperature differential between the collector output and the tank is greater than 20 deg. That pump is very quiet. Does its sound change when it’s running under full sun light conditions? No change. Does the system provide supplement heat in your home? It provides all the heat for the solarium heat and hot water needs now, I plan to add floor heat to the house at some point and that will supplement our existing heat. How much hot water does the system provide? All that I need. What is the water’s temperature? The controller is set to 140 deg for the water heater and the excess goes into the mass storage and that temperature stays around 110 to 145 deg . The temperature output from the collectors is dependant on the load. I have seen temperatures in excess of 170 deg at the output of the collectors numerous times. Is it meeting your expectations? Yes. Do you have a traditional water heater in your home? Yes, we have an electric water heater. We have a heat exchanger next to the water heater to transfer the heat from the sun into the hot water heater. What type is it? 100 gal Marathon purchased from REC. Where can someone go to learn more about solar heating? I looked on line and went to energy shows when I was researching what would be the best collectors for the best price. We will be offering the Solar Patriot collectors and consulting as part of the WINDerFUEL business. The new Solar Patriot Collectors have increased output to around 1,100 watt per collector. Here is a link to a large evacuated tube collector system in Michigan used to heat a swimming pool (www.BTFsolar.com/solarpool.htm). Also see BTFsolar's main web page at: www.BTFsolar.com, and details on the Solar Patriot Collectors are available at: www.BTFsolar.com/specifications.htm. |
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