Photoelectric Water Heaters Use in Hot Climate Conditions

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the hot water production using photoelectric modules. The research goal was to estimate required photovoltaic array peak power to provide necessary hot water amount for an individual residential building in Uzbekistan climate conditions. To achieve this goal, the water heater operation has been simulated with TRNSYS software using data from NASA POWER meteorology database. To verify photovoltaic water heater mathematical models three-month experiment has been conducted. Operation with and without maximum power point tracking controller was considered. The main results are approximation equations, which were constructed basing on simulation outcome to estimate the required photovoltaic array power without numerical calculations for the region. As for electric boilers, consuming energy generated by traditional thermal power plants photovoltaic water heaters have been still considered inefficient and quite expensive. However solar collectors market growth slowdown and substantial decrease of photovoltaic panels cost make the heat generation by photovoltaic panels economically justified. Such photovoltaic panels application can be proposed as alternative to thermal and optical method of solar radiation concentration in solar heaters. The main advantage is a possibility to obtain any temperature from the generated electricity without limitations concerned with the coolant presence in the system The obtained results significance is concerned with highlighting of photovoltaic heating systems technical and economic competitiveness for some applications and with simplified calculation technique to estimate system composition for different climate conditions.

Keywords

• solar water heater
• a
• photovoltaic panel