Optimal design of solar water heating systems

Abstract

Solar water heating systems are usually designed using simplified equation of annual efficiency of the heating system from solar radiation incident on the collector during the year and empirical values of annual efficiency. The pe1formance of the preliminary design is predicted by using either/chart method or by translate it simulation of solar heating system. Often, optimization is done off-line after correlating the annual contribution of solar energy to the heating load and collector area using simulation resu!ts by analytical methods. In this work, a methodology a11d a computer programme using univariant search method is developed for optimal design of solar water heating systein. The program uses the collector area and the storage tank volume as optimization parameters and the unit energy price of solar water heating system as objective function and the annual fraction of contribution of solar energy to the heating load is considered as constraint.