Abstract
This paper describes an experimental study on efficiency of solar collector in solar water heating system connected to hourly water heating load. In general, the functional form of solar efficiency is expressed as a function of fluid temperature entering solar collector, ambient temperature, and solar irradiance. When energy saving from solar heating of water heating system is analyzed on along-term basis such as one year with given solar irradiance data, simplified analysis is more convenient han detailed system simulation for quick assessment. However, the functional form of the efficiency is not convenient for approximately simplified energy analysis because the inlet temperature can be obtained through a detailed system simulation. In the study, solar collector efficiency is obtained with various daily water heating load sand daily solar irradiance using experimental tests. The study also considers large residential buildings such as apartment buildings for application of solar water heating systems. From test results, it is found that daily solar collector efficiency is proportional to daily water heating loads and daily solar irradiance. The data obtained from the study can be utilized to find a functional relation between daily solar irradiance and daily heating load in stead of collector inlet temperature for application of solar collector efficiency to long-term approximated energy analysis of solar heating system.
