In many countries, a solar heating system can provide a very high percentage of domestic hot water requirements. In many northern European countries, combined hot water and space heating systems are used to provide 15% to 25% home heating energy.
A solar heating system is composed of solar thermal collectors that move the heat to its point of usage and a reservoir or tank for heat storage. The system may be used to heat domestic hot water, swimming pool water or for space heating.
In order to heat water using solar energy, a collector is fastened to the roof of a building or on a wall facing the sun. The collector could be made of simple glass topped insulated box with a flat solar absorber made of sheet metal.
The system pumps cold water to a collector to be heated. The heated water flows back to a collection tank. This type of collector would be able to provide hot water for an entire family.
There are three main kinds of solar thermal collectors in common use : Formed Plastic
Collectors, Flat Collectors and Evacuated Tube Collectors.
Formed Plastic Collectors consist of panels through which water is circulated and heated by the sun's radiation. This is suitable for extending the swimming season in swimming pools and most suitable for heating an open-air swimming pool where heating the pool with non-renewable energy sources is not allowed. This inexpensive system offer an ideal solution. The disadvantage of this panel is that it is not suitable for year round uses to provide hot water for home use.
A Flat Collector consists of a thin absorber sheet backed by a grid or coil of fluid tubing and placed in an insulated casing with a glass cover. Fluid is circulated through the tubing to remove the heat from the absorber and transport it to an insulated water tank or some other device for using the heated fluid.
Evacuated Tube Collectors are made of a series of modular tubes mounted in parallel. This type of collector consists of rows of parallel transparent glass tubes, each of which contains an absorber tube. The tubes are covered with a special light-modulating coating. In an evacuated tube collector, sunlight passes through an outer glass tube and heats the absorber tube contained within. The simplest type, pumps a heat transfer fluid through a U-shaped copper tube placed in each of the glass collector tubes. The heated liquid then circulates through a heat exchanger and gives off its heat to water that is stored in a storage tank.
Because technical innovation has improved performance, life expectancy and ease of use of these systems, solar hot water systems are very popular, apart from in the U.S. also in Austria, Germany and China. In Israel and Greece, installation of solar hot water heating has become the norm. It is fast spreading into other countries as well.
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