Experimental study of the performance for a novel kind of MHPA-FPC solar water heater

•A novel kind of FPC SWH is presented.•A year round test was conducted from May 2010 to April 2011.•The annual average system efficiency was 58.29% for the SWH.•The annual average daily effective heat gain was found to be 9.5 MJ m−2.•Test results can serve as an important basis for understanding MHPA-FPC SWH.

This paper presented the whole year performance of a novel kind of microheat pipe array (MHPA) flat plate solar water heater. The structure and characters of the novel MHPA-FPC were presented. To quantify the performance of the novel MHPA-FPC SWH, a whole year thermal performance experiment was conducted in Beijing, China. The experimental system was built in a household scale with a 165 l water tank and a 2 m2 MHPA-FPC. The effective heat gain and the thermal efficiency were used to evaluate the performance of the MHPA-FPC SWH. The test data were analyzed from the aspects of daily, monthly and seasonal performance. The test results present an excellent characteristics for the novel MHPA-FPC SWH in the whole year. The annual average daily effective heat gain was found to be 9.5 MJ m−2, and the annual average system efficiency was 58.29%.