Solar Thermal System Design

• The use of solar energy in manufacturing and industrial processes has been limited to
just a few applications.

• Contrary the need for industrial heat at low temperature which could be met using solar
heat is huge.

• The industrial sectors includes

– Food
– Chemical
– Transport
– Textile
– Brewing
– Desalination
– Cooling
– etc
 Typical Application
• Washing processes
– Cleaning processes are mainly applied in the food industry, the textile industry and in the transport
industry. For cleaning purposes hot water is needed at a temperature level between 40 and 90 oC. Due to
this temperature range flat-plate collectors are recommended for this application.

• Distilling and Chemical Processes.

– For industrial processes where temperature between 120 and 250 oC are needed, concentrating solar
collector, such as parabolic collectors have to be used.
 Basic Steps to Designing a Solar Thermal System
• It is important for the design engineer to establish the following:

– Heat demand
• Thermal load: demand per day or per year.
• Load profile: daily, weekly and annual variation of the heat demand
• Available temperature level: temperature level at the heat integration point (low
temperature are often favorable).
– Support of open or closed processes:
• A process is open, if the medium to be heated is not circulated
– Directly or indirectly heated processes
• Heat supply to the process via heat exchanger is indirect
• The supply is direct, when the heat carrier is consumed by the process
– Integration on process-or supply level:
• On the process level the solar heat is supporting a process on the supply level
• The solar thermal system is supporting a hot water or steam network
Typical Thermal Load Profile for Hot Water (UB
Students Homes Working Day)

108

98

88

78
Demand for hot water (%)

68

58

48

38

28

18

-2
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Time of day
 Typical Thermal Load Demand for Processing
Company (Kgalahadi Breweries Working Week)

118
108
98
88
78
Heat demand (%)

68
58
48
38
28
18
8
-2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Day of weeks
Concept for Pre-Heating of hot water
Concept for Pre-Heating of hot Water Con
 Solar Energy
• In order to see how much of the energy your solar thermal collector will capture, we
need to look at the size of the collector.

• There are three different surface areas that may be used to define the size of a thermal
solar collector.
• These are
– Gross
– Aperture
– Absorber
• Gross area – calculated as the total width  height
– This measurement included the frame, manifold casting, and the space between the tube

• Aperture area – in flat plate is calculated as the same area of the glazing (glass) exposed
to the sun. Aperture has been adopted by most countries and industry as
the standard surface area to use when quoting efficiency values.

• Absorber Area – in flat plate is calculated as the area of the glazing (glass) exposed to
sunlight.
 Solar System Design
• When designing a solar system it is imperative that the system is sized correctly;
otherwise inadequate performance or overheating may occur.

• Generally the average daily hot water usage is between 40 – 50 liters per person. When
sizing solar systems 50 litres is normally taken as an average.

• As a rule of thumb approximately a m2 of collector aperture area is required per person

 Solar System Design Con
• Assume measured demand of 10m3 hot water per working day (UB students homes). If
we also assume the tap water temperature is 15oC while the hot water temperature (bath
water) is 60oC. The heat demand can be calculated (simplified) as below:

• Assume 236 working days per year (UB Calendar). The annual energy demand of this
process is given as below:

• The primary question here is “which part of this annual demand can be covered by solar
thermal in a more economic way”?
 Solar System Design Con
• First we need to determine the required Solar Aperture Area to support the required
annual energy demand of 123.3 MWth /year. This is evaluated taking into consideration,
solar fraction factor and estimated solar gains within a given location, region.

• For our case, let assume solar fraction factor of 80% and solar gains of 900 kWh/(year *
A ap).

The Solar Aperture area is therefore calculated as below

 Solar System Design Con
• Storage tank
 Double Shift (Approach)

• Typical load profile for a process company