Report on the analysis of field data relating to the reliability of solar hot water systems.
- Building Specialists, Inc., Albuquerque, NM
Utilities are overseeing the installations of thousand of solar hot water (SHW) systems. Utility planners have begun to ask for quantitative measures of the expected lifetimes of these systems so that they can properly forecast their loads. This report, which augments a 2009 reliability analysis effort by Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), addresses this need. Additional reliability data have been collected, added to the existing database, and analyzed. The results are presented. Additionally, formal reliability theory is described, including the bathtub curve, which is the most common model to characterize the lifetime reliability character of systems, and for predicting failures in the field. Reliability theory is used to assess the SNL reliability database. This assessment shows that the database is heavily weighted with data that describe the reliability of SHW systems early in their lives, during the warranty period. But it contains few measured data to describe the ends of SHW systems lives. End-of-life data are the most critical ones to define sufficiently the reliability of SHW systems in order to answer the questions that the utilities pose. Several ideas are presented for collecting the required data, including photometric analysis of aerial photographs of installed collectors, statistical and neural network analysis of energy bills from solar homes, and the development of simple algorithms to allow conventional SHW controllers to announce system failures and record the details of the event, similar to how aircraft black box recorders perform. Some information is also presented about public expectations for the longevity of a SHW system, information that is useful in developing reliability goals.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Albuquerque, NM, and Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 1022197
- Report Number(s):
- SAND2011-4759; TRN: US201118%%336
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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