Saddle Hill Trust Lot 77, Medway, Massachusetts. Solar energy system performance evaluation, September 1979-August 1980

Technical Report · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1980

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6658867· OSTI ID:6658867

Evans, K. D.

The Saddle Hill Trust Lot 77 site is a single-family residence in Medway, Massachusetts that uses solar energy to preheat incoming city water. The solar energy system consists of an array of four Solaron DHW series 2000 flat-plate collectors having a total area of 78 square feet. The array faces south at a tilt of 38 degrees to the horizontal. Air is the medium used to transfer heat from the collectors to an air-to-liquid heat exchanger in the DHW subsystem. Solar energy is retained in a 120-gallon DHW preheat tank. Preheated city water is then supplied to a conventional gas-fired (auxiliary energy) 40-gallon DHW tank. The Saddle Hill Trust Lot 77 solar energy system supplied 38% of the DHW heating needs during the period from September 1979 through August 1980. There were 10.28 million BTU of energy collected by the system and 5.29 million BTU or 51% of this energy was used to help satisfy the DHW load. The collector array efficiency (based on the total solar radiation incident on the collector array) was 28%. The use of solar energy saved 8639 cubic feet of natural gas. The solar energy system functioned consistently throughout the reporting period, providing significant amounts of solar energy to the DHW subsystem. The measured system solar fraction of 38% was close to the 43% design solar fraction for the system. However, the net dollar savings for the year were minimal, as the cost of the electrical energy needed to operate the system was almost as great as the cost of the fossil fuel saved.

• Research Organization: Automation Industries, Inc., Silver Spring, MD (USA). Vitro Labs. Div.
• DOE Contract Number: AC01-79CS30027
• OSTI ID: 6658867
• Report Number(s): SOLAR/1040-80/14
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
140907* -- Solar Thermal Utilization-- Water Heating
AIR HEATERS
AMBIENT TEMPERATURE
APPLIANCES
BUILDINGS
DATA
EFFICIENCY
ENERGY CONSUMPTION
EQUIPMENT
FLAT PLATE COLLECTORS
HEATERS
HEATING
HOUSES
INFORMATION
INSOLATION
MASSACHUSETTS
NORTH AMERICA
NORTH ATLANTIC REGION
PERFORMANCE
RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS
SOLAR AIR HEATERS
SOLAR COLLECTORS
SOLAR EQUIPMENT
SOLAR HEATING
SOLAR WATER HEATERS
SOLAR WATER HEATING
THERMAL EFFICIENCY
USA
WATER HEATERS