Improvement of collection efficiency and solar fraction in solar thermal storage system using a 3-way valve and a 2-stage flowrate control

In the present study, we investigated the effects of a combined system-control method in a solar thermal system; specifically, prevention of temperature reversal plus a reduced circulation rate. A 3-way valve is adopted as a remedy of the temperature reversal in the water storage tank and a 2-stage flowrate is implemented as the flowrate control strategy. To evaluate the effects, we perform five experiments and TRNSYS based simulations with a carefully developed system-control algorithm. As the main result, we experimentally validated that a 3-way valve is effective for the prevention of temperature reversal and a 2-stage flowrate extends the solar energy collection time. Annual simulation results show that the proposed combined method improves the system performances (1.9%p increase of collector efficiency, 2.2%p increase of solar fraction, and 5.3% additional collected energy) compared to the conventional forced circulation system. Our results should be applied to the water storage tank proposed in this study.