Impact of load profile and collector technology on the fractional savings of solar domestic water heaters under various climatic conditions

This paper investigates the influence of the domestic hot water load profiles and the collector's technology (Flat Plate FPC, Evacuated Tube ETC and Compound Parabolic CPC) on the performance of forced circulation solar water heaters operating under various climatic conditions. For this end, a typical single family house composed of five occupants located in Morocco was considered. It is found that, the solar fraction can reach annual average values of 80% especially in areas with high solar energy potential. For a fixed consumption profile, the simulations showed that the installations with FPC, ETC and CPC can consume about 1644, 1199 and 1481 kWh/year of auxiliary energy, respectively. Moreover, it is found that, adapting the consumption profile, can save approximately 43 kWh/year for FPC, 13 kWh/year for ETC and about 29 kWh/year for CPC of energy.