Domestic Hot Water Requirement Profile in Nigeria
Abstract
A study of the domestic hot water requirement profile in Nigeria necessary for design of appropriate domestic solar water heaters is presented. The study is a combination of survey and evaluation research using the stratified random sampling with optimum allocation using an effective sample size of 200. Hence, 200 questionnaires were administered into domestic homes; hotels and hospitals across urban, semi-urban and rural areas of Nigeria. Several key variables such as the quantity of hot water needs, the period of the day hot water are most needed and main source of heating for the household in addition to the cost involved were studied. Other concomitant variables such as type of accommodation, income category, literacy level and family size were also considered. The study revealed that that 84% of homes consume about 100Litres, while 93% of hotels and 60% of hospitals need about 2000Litres of hot water daily. The study further revealed that firewood, kerosene and gas in that order are the major energy sources for producing hot water in homes. However, hotels and hospitals depend more on electricity and gas to produce hot water. Again, the study revealed that 50% of the homes recurrent expenditure on energy is used for heating water; while hotels and hospitals spend about 32% and 21% respectively of their energy recurrent expenditure for the same purpose. Further analysis showed that the utilization of solar water heaters could significantly reduce the cost of domestic water heating. There is a significant gain for using solar water heaters over existing methods. Generally, the cost of producing hot water was considered high; justifying the need for cheaper and sustainable energy devices such as solar water heaters.