If you do decide to invest in a solar powered water heating system, then it will be important to know what solar water heating panel – or thermal collector – your system will use. The type of collector will affect the efficiency of your system and, by extension, the level of savings you’ll make compared to your regular heating bill.
There are three principal types of thermal collectors available for you to choose from: Flat Plate, Evacuated Tube and Formed Plastic.
The collector is designed to capture the heat of the sun, and in most cases intensify it, in order to heat water or an anti-freeze-water mixed heating fluid. The collectors are mounted on a wall or a roof in strategic positions in order to capture the maximum amount of sunlight during the day.
As you might expect, formed plastic panels are the least expensive form of thermal collectors because of the simplicity in manufacturing plastic parts. However, it is highly effective for places like public swimming pools, where large volumes of water need to be heated to a warm degree. In formed plastic collectors, water is circulated through a series of tubes and is heated by the sun. On the down side, this type is not effective for year-round use, and is generally only utilised during the hot summer months.
Flat plate panels are probably the most commonly used design. An absorber sheet, which can be made of steel, aluminium or copper with a black coating on it, is placed in an insulated box. The box is covered with either glass or some polycarbonate material which captures the sun’s heat effectively. A grid of tubing ensures that the fluid (water or mix) is exposed to a maximum degree of heat as it circulates through the collector. While metal collectors are the most popular, polymer is becoming more popular since it is freeze tolerant.
Evacuated tube panels are the most expensive but the array can be expanded as need requires. An array of glass tubes are mounted parallel to each other within a square box. Each tube has an absorber tube inside it, sealed in a vacuum. The sunlight passes through the outer glass tube and hits the absorber (made either of copper or a specially coated glass) which heats the water or fluid within it. In the evacuated tube collector, the absorber is sealed at the manifold, sealing the vacuum, but in other designs the absorber and the copper heat pipe (which transfers the fluid) are inside the glass tube. This can cause corrosive problems and may lead to the early replacement of tubes.
Flat plate collectors are highly efficient in climates of high temperatures and long periods of sunlight, while evacuated tube collectors rely on sunlight not outside temperature to work efficiently making it ideal for use in more temperate climates.
Despite the relatively high cost of an evacuated tube collector compared to the others, solar water heating panels last a considerable length of time. Both evacuated tube and flat plate panels can last for 25 years.
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