Performance Investigation Of Solar Water Heating System Integrated With PCM Storage

The availability of hot water supply is an essential needs for households and industries. Use of solar water heater (SWH) to meet the hot water supply is solution with efficient and low cost technology. This research presents a development of SWH with modification of the absorber plate integrated with phase change material (PCM) storage. The V-shaped absorber plate integrated with PCM storage using stearid acid in the SWH was investigated experimentally. The performance of this SWH was compared with the conventional type using flat plate absorber. The experiment was performed for the two types of SWH by operating them simultaneously. It starts from 09:00 AM to 3:00 PM (local time) with flowrates of 0.5; 1.0 and 1.5 L/min respectively. The average performances of SWH with PCM storage are 34.6% (0.5 L/min), 43.7% (1.0 L/min) and 60.0% (1.5 L/min) respectively. For the SWH with flat plate absorber, the average performances are 30.9% (0.5 L/min), 33.8% (1.0 L/min) and 48.7% (1.5 L/min) respectively. The results show an increase of performance of SWH by using PCM storage (stearid acid) of 3.7% (0.5 L/min), 9.9% (1.0 L/min) and 11.3% (1.5 L/min) respectively.