Automating a solar water heating system

Abstract

The use of solar thermal energy is getting more attention throughout the past few years, providing alternative yet efficient solutions to the energy production challenge across the globe.
Solar thermal collectors are one of the most diversified types of the solar collectors’ family, starting from one simple principle: heating water from the sun. The technology used in this area is simple yet reliable. The collector used in the project is a photo thermal converter; the solar radiations are captured by the solar cells, heating the water inside a serpentine and transferring it to the reservoir.
The photo thermal collector is illuminated by a laboratory lamp of 277, 42 Watts (extracted power) and heats the water up to 39°C in 15 minutes.
The aim of this work is to study different theories to realize a monitoring and a control approach to uphold the temperature of the reservoir in a specified range and establish better productivity of the system. Therefore, we added two Arduino-based devices, one to monitor temperature, and the other to control the water pump speed based on the values detected from the temperature sensors. The temperature of the water in the reservoir is maintained in the desired range (30°C to 40°C). The communication between the computer and the system in a total is done by serial data transfer.

Keywords

• Solar energy,Temperature control,Electronic devices,Arduino boards,Renewable energy,Photo-thermal

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