Solar Heating with Seasonal Storage. Some Aspects of the Design and Evaluation of Systems with Water Storage

Doctoral thesis, 1993

The report provides a basis for detailed design and evaluation of future solar heating plants with an insulated seasonal water storage. The importance of careful design and plant commissioning is pointed out and a system simulation model for future analyses of system performance is provided. A general evaluation methodology is presented. A pilot plant is described and used as an evaluation example. A system simulation model is formed and validated for the actual system performance in the pilot plant. The simulation model is then used to generalise the results in a parametric study. Sensitivity analyses for modified designs are carried out. The influence on thermal performance of some system design parameters is related to the change in collector area that will give the same amount of net solar coverage for a given storage and load. The report includes important design aspects of storage system layout and collector system heat capacity rate, which confirms earlier recommendations by the author. The influence of storage design on thermal performance is also presented in a similar way for a given collector and load. The cost permissible for a modified design is presented in relation to marginal collector cost. This way of presenting the results enables cost analyses to be performed by those designers who have the necessary knowledge to make an improved design.