An experimental study of solar thermal system with storage for domestic applications

Building sector consumes a greater portion of energy for heating and cooling applications. The utilization of fossil fuels for space and water heating in buildings cause a negative effect on the environment by producing larger CO2. In this study solar thermal water heating system for building application have been analyzed from the first and second law perspectives of thermodynamics considering various scenarios and water consumption pattern. The solar flat collector is very commonly used to extract energy from sunlight. Therefor energy and exergy efficiency curves for the solar flat collector were presented. The energetic and exergetic values for the system were calculated based on the experimental values for the overall system, the heat exchanger and the pumps using the approach of exergetic product/fuel basis. The greatest and lowest relative irreversibility’s occurred at the solar collector and the heat exchanger with values of 85.73% and 2.45%, respectively, and the system overall exergy efficiency was determined to be 20.28%. The energy and exergy efficiencies of the solar collector were analyzed at three different cases depending on the mass flow rates in the solar collector and the secondary circuit of the system. Three different mass flow rates were applied to the inlet of the secondary circuit to observe the efficiency effect on the solar collector circuit. This study can assist in selecting a proper solar collector and storage size for buildings of various capacity and possible improvement in the design of the system components.