Novel Method to Increase The Efficiency Of Solar Water Heaters

Hot water is required in our daily life. In cities, nearly 20-30% of electricity is used to heat water every day. An alternative and a clean source to heat water is Solar Energy. Since the initial cost of solar water heaters is high, it is not easily affordable by many people. Various surveys and analyses are done to find out an optimal design which is cost efficient with better performance. In the first analysis, a preliminary test where charcoal, sand, copper tube with the small diameter is kept inside the glass bottle. The bottom half of glass bottle is vertically filled with charcoal powder/sand. It was found out that, the addition of the materials increase the heating effect, the significant increase in temperature can be seen in the results. Second analysis proves the need of the storage tank and its effect on the heated water. In the third analysis, the prototype which is based on the evacuated tube solar water heater is designed, and the analysis similar to the preliminary test is done. However the heating effect from one more design namely, copper fin under the copper tube design is analyzed. It is evident that the latter design with the copper fin, the rate of change of temperature is higher than the rest. Using ANSYS and TRNSYS software tool the hardware results are validated. Finally, the prototype is set with the copper fin design. DS18B20 temperature sensor and Node-MCU is incorporated to get the temperature values in the user's smartphone. In villages, combustion of firewood to heat water causes massive smoke generation. As the proposed model's initial cost is less compared to other designs in the market, it can be implemented in rural areas and will make villages smoke-free. The proposed model can be used in homes, commercial buildings, hostels and small scale industries.