Cooling load reduction of a house-integrated solar concrete collector as a deck slab or roof

Abstract

The study examines the performance of a solar conerete collector for reducing heat gain to house and providing domestic hot water, The solar concrete collector is made of PVC pipes embedded in deck slab or concrete roof. No glazing on the top of the solar concrete collector or insulation at the back was used as in conventional solar water heaters. To compare the energy saving. Two test rooms of 2.3 m width, 2.5 m length and 2.5 m height were built. At the first, the reinforced cement concrete was used as deck slab whereas the second room was equipped with the solar concrete collector. The experimental results showed that the solar concrete collector is extremely interesting as it can produce hot water up to 40 liters per day, water temperature was 40-50ºC. The average room temperature was about 2ºC lower than the conventional room. No effect of seasons (summer and winter), because of the solar intensities of both seasons were similar. The economic analysis indicates that the payback period is rather fast. The estimated annual savings are about 19.2 – 265.7 kWh per year. Therefore, the design recommendations formulated here could be used to conduct a realistic design of deck slab or concrete roof depending on the requirements of the house’s owner.