What are Different Designs of Residential Solar Water Heaters?

Solar water heating systems are commonly used in every country around the world. Asia stands out the premier name in the residential solar water heating industry and is followed by Europe.

Countries like Israel and Germany have been using residential solar water heaters over decades. They are popular in Germany as both commercial and residential builds require incorporating solar heating into the heating design.

Hawaii stands out in North America because of incentives and electricity cost. With aggressive green energy plan, California stands second after it. Canada has twice solar energy than Germany; but lacks clearly defined green energy plan. But the successful Ontario FIT program may bring a change in Canada’s green energy plan.

However, solar water heating systems are considered as the easiest and most affordable ways of going green. As compared to solar PV kits, on an average a household can retrofit its existing water heating system to a solar-powered one within $3500. This means, you can get the installation done for a few dollars.

How Do Solar Water Heaters Work?

Are you living in Northern climates? And need to install a solar water heater? If yes, the solar powered heating system requires some sort of protection against freezing. It can be done by a drain back where the water is drained back inside the house during the night to avoid freezing.

Or it can be performed through an active closed loop with a heat exchanger for transferring polypropylene heating fluid to the potable hot water. However, polypropylene can handle temperature below minus 40 degree without freezing in the cold northern climates. This guarantees the system won’t get damaged even if there’s any occurrence of malfunctions.

There are four important components of residential solar water heaters. They are discussed below.

Solar Collector –It absorbs solar energy and converts to heat energy.

Pump Station and Controller – It moves heat from the collector to the heat exchanger when there’s positive heat energy to transfer like this during the day time.

Heat Exchanger – It transfers usable heat energy from the glycol to the potable water and won’t mix two fluids.

Piping and Fittings – They help you connect the system together to form a pressurized closed loop solar heater.

Different Designs of Residential Solar Water Heaters

Residential solar water heaters are available in two different layouts like supplemental and pre-heat designs.

Pre-Heat Solar Water Heating System –

A solar powered pre-heat design uses two tanks. The primary tank is the existing hot water tank used by homeowners. It can be powered by gas, electric or on-demand.

A secondary tank ispresent before the primary tank and is heated completely by using solar energy. When a hot water tap is opened, the water from the tank is drawn into the primary tank. The solar energy heats water coming to the main tank that results in less energy being required for domestic hot water.

Supplemental Solar Water Heating System –

A supplemental solar water heater features with single tank configuration. The top part of the solar tank has an electric heating element. A solar system heats the bottom part of the solar water tank.

When the hot water goes to the top, the backup element may supply heat energy. A supplemental solar water heater can be available with standard electric water tank when the power of bottom element gets disconnected.

Please remember that, electric heaters have top and bottom heating element. The main benefit of supplemental water heating system is that it only requires tank which works for homes with limited space or new home construction.

Author Information –

This article is written by Latitude51 Solar, specializes in providing pre-engineered residential solar waters ensuring optimal performance and efficiency.