Dear Solarthermalworld.org Reader,
Whether a small residential system or a 2,000 m2
solar process heat plant – inspections and monitoring can definitely
improve the performance of a majority of installations. In this
newsletter, we take a closer look at two quality assurance studies. In
Austria, 40 commercial systems between 100 and 2,000 m2
were monitored over the first year in operation. In Italy, 430 mostly
residential hot water systems were inspected after an average of five
years in operation. Both studies, as different as they may be, came to
the same conclusion: Despite the detection of a high number of smaller
and larger problems, most of these were found in the conventional part
of the heating and hot water supply system. Actually, only 43 % of the
115 problems were linked to the solar circuit in Austria. In Italy, only
8 % of the systems had failures of the heat transfer fluid and less
than 3 % showed damage in the solar collectors. The difficulties most
often encountered by the Italian inspection teams were undersized pipe
insulation, incorrect installations of the expansion vessel, as well as
leakage in the primary circuit and in the valves.
The photo shows one of the monitored Austrian installations, a field with 460 m2 of vacuum tube collectors on the roof of the Austrian furniture fittings manufacturer Julius Blum.
Have a good read and sunny regards
The editorial team
Monitoring in Austria
System inspections in Italy
Photo: Ritter Energie- und Umwelttechnik