Alternative Fuel

By: WES HAMILTON
With emergent awareness about global warming, citizens are turning more towards eco-friendly and green products. Credit to climatic reforms and conferences, which have made people conscious of their share of work towards the environment. More and more consumers are opting for green and solar energy products as they have now realized the importance of this transition. Solar energy has become one of the prime resources of energy due to its abundance and varied advantages. Manufacturers are slowly coping up with the colossal demand for solar water heaters and other solar energy equipments.

Nowadays energy efficient Solar Water Heaters are replacing almost all traditional water heaters owing to their affordability, cost effective nature and proficiency as an alternative. Primarily there are two types of residential solar water heaters- active and passive.

Active Solar Water Heaters constitute of heaters with circulating pumps and control equipment while in passive solar water heaters, the pumps and additional equipment is missing. Active solar heaters are further divided into two types:

Direct circulation system- As the name suggests, in these systems, the water is directly heated and then circulated in pipes all over the installation. The primary disadvantage is for the regions where water often freezes in pipes. Indirect circulation system- this system was developed to overcome the aforementioned drawback. The system uses a separate heat exchanger with a non-freezing liquid circulating. The sun warms the liquid, which sequentially heats the water for circulation in the house.

Passive water heaters are economic, easy to install and operate but relatively inefficient than active heaters.

The focal part of a solar water heater is the solar panel or the solar collector. There are three types of solar collectors:

Flat-plate collector Integral collector-storage systems Evacuated-tube solar collectors

Flat-plate collector

This type of collector consists of an insulated and glazed flat top. The surface is made up of weatherproof boxes and a dark absorber plate, which is covered by one or more polymer layers for protection purposes. The flat plate collectors are efficient in warm regions. In addition, they are the most economic forms of solar water heating equipment and can be easily installed with the help of plumber from a reliable company.

Integral collector-storage systems

The integral collector-storage systems also known as ICS or batch systems are equipped with a black tank / insulated tubes surrounded by a glazed box for maximum rays assimilation. The cold water flows through the preheated panel and thus provides an instant source of hot water. The only caution is that it can only be efficiently applied in mild-freeze climates due to solidification of water in pipes during cold weather.

Evacuated-tube solar collectors

The final type of solar collector is the evacuated-tube solar collector that consists of parallel transparent / translucent glass tubes. Each tube is outfitted with a metal absorber tube inside. The metal-tube system is connected to a fin that amplifies the efficiency to several times. The fin absorbs the solar energy and restrains heat loss due to radiation. The remarkably efficient collector owing to its unique design, it is also the most expensive solar thermal collector.

Opting for renewable sources of energy has become the norm these days and such initiations can save us from the dilapidation and dependence on non-renewable sources.

Wes Hamilton is the owner of PLUMB PRO, INC a full service plumbing company located in Alabama. htp://www.plumbpro.net/ http://www.plumbproinc.com