Determining Solar Water Heating System Performance by Simulation

TRNSYS (Transient Simulation) is used to simulate a solar hot water heating system. Three different collector areas, hot water demand and temperature settings are used to determine system performance under varying environmental conditions. The percent solar utilization or solar fraction and collector efficiency is found to be a function of collector area, tank temperature setting, daily hot water demand and solar radiation. Regression analysis is used to study solar fraction sensitivity to these same variables. Predictive models relating solar utilization with hot water load and collector area are obtained by fixing radiation level and tank temperature. Results are portrayed graphicall