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Solar Heating
This involves the use of heat obtained
from light conversion for:
(i) heating water
(for domestic and industrial use), swimming pools,
(ii)
space heating of
buildings and
(iii) Meeting
other heat needs as
listed in the list of applications.
(i)
Solar Water Heating
Solar heating systems for heating
water, heating swimming pools and for similar uses can be active
or passive systems. Active Solar Water
Heaters require pumps to pump the water through the solar water system,
whereas, in passive heaters
water flows under its own pressure.
Both systems require collectors to collect
sun rays. Cold water is either pumped (active) or flow under pressure
(passive) from the heat exchanger through a piping system to a panel with outer surface equipped
with a collector facing the sun. As the water passes through the panel, it
is heated up and returned into the heat exchanger. In the heat exchanger,
hot water rise to the top because it is hot and is released to serve the
end users.
Collectors are either non-concentrating
(i.e. collector area is same as absorber area) or concentrating (i.e.
collector area is greater than the absorber area).
The
solar heating systems can be adapted to achieve all the other heating
needs such cooking, distillation, disinfection, drying etc, listed
above.
(ii) Solar Space
Heating / Cooling
Space heating
involves he use of solar energy to provide wholly or partially the heat
needs for warming up a house in winter times. The system can also be
adapted with fans to provide cooling during the summer months. Space Heating can be either "Active" or "Passive". Active Systems
use collector (s) to collect sunlight and convert the light to heat needed in the house. Passive systems make use of direct light from
Sun to provide energy, without recourse to any mechanical or electrical
medium. The passive systems can easily
be adapted to provide heat (Passive Solar Heating (PSH)) to provide heat
during winter or cool down the house (Passive Solar Cooling (PSC)) in summer months. PSH
design collects and stores thermal energy from direct sunlight.
PSC
minimizes the effects of solar radiation through shading or
generating air flows with convection ventilation. Passive systems are design based, involving
the
use of the building components to collect, store and redistribute
solar heat
gains. This
is achieved through proper
materials'
selection,
sizing and orientation of
windows, doors and other building
components.
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