Solar Residential Heating and Cooling Field Test Program. Volume 1. Domestic hot water systems. Final report

The Electric Power Research Institute sponsored a field test program to develop information on the operating characteristics and performance of load-managed solar hot water systems in typical single-family homes. Field demonstrations were conducted in three houses built and occupied under the program: two in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and a third on Long Island in New York. The houses were equipped with a variety of experimental domestic hot water systems which were instrumented and monitored over a two-year test period ending in 1981. Load management was accomplished by the storage of thermal energy in tanks of water. Arthur D. Little, Inc., the overall project manager for EPRI, collected and reduced the data and performed a series of analyses that addressed issues of concern to electric utilities, including: Reduction in peak-period electricity demand achieved by the experimental systems, Changes in off-peak and total electricity consumption, Ability of the storage systems to meet water heating requirements, Efficient utilization of stored energy, and Standby heat losses. The results from the domestic water heater test program showed that, generaally, load-managed solar systems were reliable and could be used effectively to shift peak-period electrical loads. Savings in total electricity consumption were also achieved by the solarmore » energy collection systems, without adverse effects from the load-management feature. Standby losses from storage were found to be considerable, as were off-peak power demands. Data from the field tests were used to help reformulate and successfully validate computer simulation models that had been developed in earlier phases of the project. The validated models were then run to simulate a variety of water heater systems, including some not covered by the test program.« less