Novel safety and energy management functions to solar water heating systems

This paper presents a solar water heating system with novel safety and energy management functions that protect both the solar installation and users health. The planned system schedules safeguarding operations and improves the efficiency of the heat transfer mechanism. The system prevents Legionella pneumophila bacteria colonies outbreaks and promotes energy management by using an extensive set of data, retrieved from strategically located probes that properly feed the implemented control algorithms. The methodology and the reported technical solutions in this research could be, in the future, used as an integrated part of the smart grid home area network being nowadays, in its simplest form, a practical guide to promote mass market usage of the solar water heating systems in Portugal.