Flat water heating systems

Solar water heating is the heating of water by the use of solar energy. Solar heating systems are generally composed of solar thermal collectors and a fluid system to move the heat from the collector to its point of usage. The system may use electricity for pumping the fluid, and have a reservoir or tank for heat storage and subsequent use. The systems may be used to heat water for a wide variety of uses, including home, business and industrial uses. Heating swimming pools, floor heating or energy input for space heating or cooling are more specific examples.

There are three main kinds of solar thermal collectors in common use: the formed plastic collectors, flat plate collectors (majority in Cyprus) and evacuated tube collectors.

Nova Energia Ltd. chose to offer the most efficient of the above technologies, the evacuated tube collectors. They are made of a series of modular tubes, mounted in parallel, whose number can be added to or reduced as hot water delivery needs change. This type of collector consists of rows of parallel transparent glass tubes, each of which contains an absorber tube (in place of the absorber plate to which metal tubes are attached in a flat-plate collector). In an evacuated tube collector, sunlight passing through an outer glass tube heats the absorber tube contained within it. Inside the absorber tube, liquid is transferred to remove the heat. The heated liquid then circulates through a heat exchanger and gives off its heat to water that is stored in a storage tank.

Evacuated tube collectors heat to higher temperatures, with some models providing considerably more solar yield (solar energy) per square meter than flat panels. However, they are more expensive than flat panels, but generally of a less cost to repair in the event of damage. Evacuated heat tubes perform better than flat plate collectors in cold and mild climates because they only rely on the light they receive and not the outside temperature.

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