Solar Energy Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 175-176, 1982 0038-092X/82]080175-02503.

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Printed in Great Britain. Pergamon Press Ltd.

TECHNICAL NOTE

Collector heat capacity effect on solar system performance

O. C. JORGENSENt
Thermal Insulation Laboratory, Technical University of Denmark, Bid. l l8, 2800 Lyngby, Denmark

(Received 7 July 1981; accepted 18 November 1981)

INTRODUCTION EXAMPLES
The effects of collector heat capacity are often treated in two Using example 6.11.1 from Duffle and Beckman[l] as the basis,
distinct parts. Duffle and Beckman[l]: "One part is due to the we have the following parameters and variables:
heating of the collector from its early morning low temperature
to its final operating temperature in the afternoon. The second (mC)e 8000 JC -t
part is due to intermittent behaviour during the day whenever the UL 8 W m - 2 C -I
driving forces such as solar radiation and wind change rapidly". Ac 1 m 2
The two effects are referred to as the "storage" effect and the r~ lO00 s
"transient" effect. It has been shown[2] that the latter can be FR 0.8
considered negligible. To estimate the reduction in useful energy Tp, initial 25 C
gain because of the storage effect Duffle and Beckman[l] suggest Tp, o~,~,i,~ 40 C
multiplying the effective collector heat capacity by the tem- S 3.16 MJm-2/3600 s = 878 Wm -~
perature rise necessary to bring the collector to its inital operat- To 2C
ing temperature. However, this procedure does not account for
the fact that the collector circuit pump is not switched on during The collector pump surely switches on in this hour, and the
the period of heating up of the collector to its operating tem- useful energy calculated by the simple non-capacity HWB equa-
perature. To neglect this leads to erroneous estimations of the tion is
reduction in useful energy gain.
0.8 × [878 - 8(40 - 2)] x 3600 = 1.65 MJm -2.
Time delay
Following Duffle and Beckman[l] the differential equation of Following Duffle and Beckman[l] the reduction due to the
the collector plate temperature can be simplified to storage effect is

8 x 15 = 120 kJm -2.

(mC)e ~ = A t [ S - UL(Tp - Ta)] (1)
If we instead use eqn (6) to find when the operating period
and with the assumption that S and Ta are constant for some begins
period ¢ the solution to eqn (1) is
r = 1000In (112- 25)/(112- 40) = 189 s
(2) the calculated useful energy has to be reduced by a factor of
S-- UL(Tp. initia1- T a ) -

If the plate stagnation temperature (or equilibrium temperature) 189/3600.

T, = ( s + ULL)IUL (3) The reduction calculated like this amounts to

and the collector time constant 1.65 x 18913600 MJm -2 = 86 k.llm -2.

rt = (mC)$ AcUL It is seen that both estimates of the reduction are linearly
(4)
proportional to the collector heat capacity. The dependence on
are introduced, eqn (2) can be rearranged to yield solar irradiance, however, is not the same. Choosing a special
example with S = 337 Wm -z the useful energy calculated with no
T - T =(L- ~" initial/i.
Ip, ,.-~,.~) (5) reduction becomes 120 kJm -2. The reduction estimated following
Duffle and Beckman will be the same as in the previous
Equation (5) can be used not only to find the temperature of the example = 120 kJm -2, resulting in a zero net energy gain. The
absorber plate at the end of each time step when there is no flow correction calculated by the proposed method is 51 kJm -2, resul-
in the collector, but also to find when the absorber plate reaches a ting in a positive net energy gain equal to 69 kJm -2.
certain temperature, e.g. the set point temperature for the con- The difference observed between the two approaches in these
troller to switch on the pump. two examples is due to two different facts: While the collector is
Applying the natural logarithm to both sides of eqn (5) and heated the losses are smaller than during the period of operation,
rearranging yields and the solar gain heating the collector is not reduced by the
collector heat removal factor.
r = ~'t ln[(T~ - Tp. i~i~,)l(T, - Tp)]. (6)
DISCUSSION
In the above, the starting up effect of the collector heat
*Member of SEAS/ISES. capacity is treated. It is shown that the reduction in useful solar

175
176 Technical Note

gain will be somewhat overestimated by using the method pro- UL overall collector loss coefficient, Wm-:
posed by Duflie and Beckman[l]. Since these examples in no Tp plate temperature, C
way can be said to represent all situations and since the effect of Ta ambient temperature, C
the collector heat capacity when the collection stops is not ~" time, s
considered here, no attempt shall be made to draw firm con- Ts plate stagnation temperature, C
clusions with respect to the importance of the collector heat ¢c collector time constant, s
capacity on the system performance on a dayly, monthly or FR collector heat removal factor
yearly basis. Such conclusion would, in additon, take some in-
vestigations where the control temperature set points are taken
into consideration. ~I~RENC~
1. J. A. Dutiie and W. A. Beckman, Solar Engineering of Ther-
NOMENCLATURE mal Processes,pp. 233-236. Wiley, New York (1980).
(mC), effective collector heat capacity, JC -t 2. S. A. Klein, The effects of thermal capacitance upon the
Ac collector area, m2 performance of flat*plate solar collectors. Master's Degree
S absorbed solar irradiance, Wm-2 Thesis, University of Wisconsin (1973).