We have received a report by one of our readers in Roundswell who would like to share her findings on her solar panels with her neighbours.
With the currently rising fuel prices and also the many discussions about carbon footprints, we decided to have a solar hot water system installed on our house. Not only do we now have hot water for free every day (!) but we are also trying to learn more about the system bymonitoring its results daily.
We monitored the hot water system daily overa 2-week-period in June, including a recording of the weather, the temperature outside and within the system plus also our gas and electric usage. As such we found:
- At 8 am (after the overnight no sun/ no UV light period) the average temperature in the water tank was 56.7 ' deg C.
- At 1 pm (when the sun would be shining directly onto the solar panels) the average water tank temperature was 59 ' deg C.
- At 7 pm (when all the sun would be past the panels but all heat transfers complete) the average water tank temperature was 60 ' deg C
- The hottest temperature in the water tank was 65 ' deg C since this is the limit set for the tank. The liquid in the solar panels however got up to 127 ' deg C!!!
- The lowest temperature in the water tank at any time of day was STILL 45 ' deg! Even when we had clouds and rain for 2 days in a row. Not bad we thought! Bearing in mind though once the sun came back out, it did take until late afternoon for the water temperature to get back up to the 60s ' deg. C
- We did not find that the outside temperature had any affect on the hot water temperature. It is weather (sun/ cloud/ rain) related only.
- Regarding our gas usage: we haven't had to use a single unit of gas since installation! The readings confirm this.
- Regarding our electric usage: since our hot water is connected to the mains we have been using the hot water for boiling too and find that the time to boiling is reduced. Also there is less time required for the washing machine to heat up the laundry. Unfortunately we haven't been able to spot a drop in our electricity usage yet by the latest readings.
All of the above confirm to us that we have a good system and it's doing its job. But what we find best is that we now have hot water all day. In other words, we used to switch on the gas for hot water before we wanted to use some. So we had to wait for it to heat up and then find that it wasn't hot enough. We now find that the water is there straight away and it's hot enough for whatever usage.It also seems a nice constant heat and of course it is FREE! |
