A Simplified Design Tool for Solar DHW Systems in Multi-family Houses with Decentralized Storages

Solar DHW systems in multi-family houses is gaining more and more interest in France, where 50% of the solar collectors area installed in 2012 is dedicated to such applications. Among the various designs, systems with decentralized storages installed in each apartment offer significant advantages, such as no DHW loop requirement. Nevertheless, up to now, no simplified design tool was available on the market to calculate the solar gains. Within Scheff project, such a tool has been developed. A general overview of the software as well as the result of the validation procedure is presented within this paper.