Real-Life Conditions Performance of Residential Solar Water Preheaters in Quebec, Canada
Abstract
To the request of the Energy Efficiency Direction of Hydro-Quebec (the main electric utility in the province of Quebec, in Canada), the Laboratoire des Technologies de l’Énergie (LTE) of Hydro-Quebec built a test facility in order to evaluate, in actual conditions, the performance of solar domestic water heaters (SDWH). The test facility was set-up in the fall 2007 and a measurement campaign was carried out over two full periods of one year. The interest for the utility was to evaluate if the acquisition of a solar system by a domestic customer could be subsidised, based on the fact that these systems: 1. are saving electric energy (kWh) used to heat domestic water 2. have an impact on the DWH average power demand during winter peak periods The project also aimed to judge the general performance of the systems, to identify the best installation and operation practices, the particularities of the different system types and eventual technical flaws.