Design of a Solar Water Heating System for Kuti Hall, University of Ibadan, Ibadan

Abstract

This work presents an energy audit to determine daily heating load and energy eliminated by Solar Water Heating (SWH) system. Monthly average daily irradiance in plane of solar collector and Cold water temperature calculated from weather data collated to determine heating load. Mathematical model was developed based on heat transfer, thermal and optical and energy performance of collector. The absorber plate area, dimensions of solar collector, pipes‟ diameter, mass flow rate, fluid inlet, outlet temperature, the overall loss coefficient are considered as variables. Optimization procedures formulated and models developed were transposed into a MATLAB computational program. Components selection was also carried out. Data was generated by increasing the absorber plate area from 1 to 20m² and the mass flow rate of fluid from 0.001 to 0.009 kg/s. The optimum values recorded for the area and mass flow rate are 18.33m² and 0:0087 kg/s respectively. Increasing the mass flow rate above the optimum determines the non change of Exergy efficiency. Heat load per day in KUTI Hall is 636.7MJ and the collector area obtained is 91.64m². 6.95MJ of heat is needed per meter square. The SWH system can cater for heating load of 115MJ/day which will sufficiently heat up 600 litres of water from 24⁰C to 70⁰C.

Keywords: Water Heater, Collector, Energy Audit, Absorber, Plate