Development of a Solar Collector/Solar Water Heating System Test Center in Iran
Abstract
It is the aim of this paper to review the international standards for determining the thermal performance of solar thermal collectors and solar water heating systems and introduce the details of a test center which is under construction in our university. The motivation for this research is the increasing interest and use of solar energy for domestic and industrial water heating in Iran. This made a lot of products both locally manufactured and imported without any test procedure for their performance evaluation. In this regards, a project is defined to evaluate the feasibility of a solar collector/solar water heating system test centre in the country. The paper which originates from the above project is divided into two parts. In the first part, test procedures and standards developed or under development are described. For solar collector testing, the main standards reviewed in this paper are ISO 9806, EN 12975 and ASHRAE 93. Standards ISO 9459, EN12976/EN12977 and ASHRAE 95 are among those standards which are described for solar water heating systems. A comparison is also made among the standards in terms of their requirements and limitations. Final part of the paper outlines the results of the review, selected standards for thermal performance tests and details of the system which is now under construction are presented.