Solar Space Heating System Using High Efficiency Flat Plate Collectors: Experimental Results
Abstract
An experimental solar energy facility has been designed in order to contribute to the coverage of cooling and space heating demand for the typical Spanish housing. This work focuses on the experimental evaluation of this facility working in solar space heating mode during the winter months (November 2008- April 2009). To that purpose a new type of solar vacuum plate collectors with a higher efficiency than conventional ones has been used. The solar facility comprises a solar collector field of 48 m2 (42 m2 useful area), a plate heat exchanger, a 1500 liters storage tank, an absorption machine and several fan-coils. The facility has been tested while heating an 80 m2 building located in Madrid. The results show that the solar facility is able to meet 65 % of the space heating demand. As the average floor size of Spanish homes is 80 m2, these results can be extrapolated. This research is supported by the PSA INVISO 2007-2008 Research Project (SP3Sustainable Power Generation for Housing).