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Combining technologies solar pv panel kits

Question:

solar pv panel kits We’re about to build a new house, and I’ve been looking into alternative energy sources and energy efficiency. It’ll be located in a cool temperate environment, so winter heating will be important, and summer cooling will be necessary.solar pv panel kits  One question I have is: Does anyone make something like a solar hot water system with a heat pump as a backup?

Many heat pumps can be ordered with an option which provides water heating.  Whether that hot water is used as primary or backup for a not-so- insolated solar thermal panel is just a matter of configugaration. In Australia,solar pv panel kits  we can get off-peak electric, or natural gas backup heating for solar systems, but since a heat pump is so efficient,

Where I live, a modern heat pump is barely cheaper to operate than a gas-fired heater. The payback times almost make it economic foolishness for a house I am designing.  (This is for a backup heating solution for a passive solar home.  If it needed much more heat, it would clearly become economically attractive.) you’d think it’d be a good solution in this situation – or is there some techincal difficulty in implementing this? solar pv panel kits

No unusual technical difficulty.  I suggest you look carefully at actual costs and decide carefully what the time value of your money is.  Don’t forget upkeep costs for all of the alternatives under consideration. And I was thinking: while we’re at it, why doesn’t somebody do a general cooling/heating system that moves heat between various systems? ie heating for hot water and room heating supplied by the sun, a heat pump, and heat extracted from refrigeration; cooling for air-conditioning and refrigeration extracted from the heat pump process. Is this a feasible idea? solar pv panel kits

Very feasable and done today with heat pump systems that produce forced air heating/cooling.  With some of them, you only get domestic hot water when the heat pump is operating. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Here is an example of something similar to what you’ve asked abou tsolar pv panel kits

Response:

solar pv panel kits  We’re about to build a new house, and I’ve been looking into alternative energy sources and energy efficiency. It’ll be located in a cool temperate environment, so winter heating will be important, and summer cooling will be necessary. One question I have is: Does anyone make something like a solar hot water system with a heat pump as a backup? In Australia, we can get off-peak electric, or natural gas backup heating for solar systems, but since a heat pump is so efficient, you’d think it’d be a good solution in this situation – or is there some techincal difficulty in implementing this? And I was thinking: while we’re at it, why doesn’t somebody do a general cooling/heating system that moves heat between various systems? ie heating for hot water and room heating supplied by the sun, a heat pump, and heat extracted from refrigeration; cooling for air-conditioning and refrigeration extracted from the heat pump process. Is this a feasible idea? Any input would be greatly appreciated.solar pv panel kits

Response:

And I was thinking: while we’re at it, why doesn’t somebody do a general cooling/heating system that moves heat between various systems? ie heating for hot water and room heating supplied by the sun, a heat pump, and heat extracted from refrigeration; cooling for air-conditioning and refrigeration extracted from the heat pump process.solar pv panel kits  Is this a feasible idea?

Yes. The reason that it is not done (so we pay thrice to pull heat out of the fridge, dump it into the room, aircondition the room, and heat the hotwater, all seperately) is purely mass-market economics, not technical feasibilty. Interconnecting all the things that need heat, need cold, make heat and make cold adds complexity and cost. You can’t have a “fridge repair guy” work on the fridge, because you need a systems guy who understands how it interacts with the hot water heater and external air intakes (for not running the fridge compressor at all during cold weather). You also cannot buy a fridge that will interconnect either now or when it needs replacing – you must build the system, or have it built, and you must keep it in repair as a system. You need to run the ductwork and piping in the house to make it work. You need the sensors and controllers to make it work correctly. From a manufacturing & consumer product point of view, a bunch of separate systems which hook to a minimal number of utilities and ignore everything around them is more cost efficient. The company isn’t paying to operate the product (or the whole house system), and they want you to buy a new one every 15-20 years, not repair the one you have. From an owner point of view, you need to be a pretty good systems anaylst to keep a whole house integrated system running, long-term.solar pv panel kits  Witness the number of solar systems (active, especially) which were installed for a tax credit a decade or two ago (in the US) and are now being scrapped, because the owner can’t keep them working – either a new owner with an undocumented system, or an old one who tires of (or forgets) the maintenance procedures. There might also be a component failure which is not covered in “normal maintenance”, which the owner can’t figure out; most HVAC types won’t be able to help debug the system. These are not nearly as complex as a whole-house system would be, and the average homeowner doesn’t keep them functioning (they should be able to in most cases, but observation indicates that many do not). The reduced energy use (“savings”) of an integrated system is probably not great when compared to the much higher cost of building the system (.vs. mass-market non-integrated components). So it may not make “economic sense” until energy costs a lot more than it does now. It makes even less sense if the integrated system will be scrapped in a few years and replaced with the other type because the owner is having trouble making the whole system work properly, gets fed up, and goes back to the old style appliances. To sum up: Can be done; might not pay off; know your abilities so far as long-term maintenance is concerned [and your bank will shoot it down on that basis if you have a mortgage, in most places, as complex systems to maintain are considered harmful to resale value].solar pv panel kits  Good luck with it – it’s still a valid idea, and some aspects are not so hard to implement.

Response:

I think this very neatly summarizes the trade-off between thermodynamics and practicality. The laws of physics don’t give all the answers. When I constructed my greenhouse I tried to avoid such complexities as movable vanes etc. The only automatic device is a differential thermostat, and it is a mass-production unit from solar pool heaters (a viable technology in wide use). Nevertheless, I also think that this post illustrates how there is a lot of room for improvement in the way we harness energy to meet everyday needs. Look at the progress being made in automobiles and computers (some people would say not always successful).solar pv panel kits  If petroleum gets more expensive, and industry is able to agree on standard designs, integrated systems will I think become more viable in the future. solar pv panel kits

Interconnecting all the things that need heat, need cold, make heat and make cold adds complexity and cost. You can’t have a “fridge repair guy” work on the fridge, because you need a systems guy who understands how it interacts with the hot water heater and external air intakes (for not running the fridge compressor at all during cold weather). You also cannot buy a fridge that will interconnect either now or when it needs replacing – you must build the system, or have it built, and you must keep it in repair as a system. You need to run the ductwork and piping in the house to make it work. You need the sensors and controllers to make it work correctly.

… From an owner point of view, you need to be a pretty good systems solar pv panel kits  anaylst to keep a whole house integrated system running, long-term. … The reduced energy use (“savings”) of an integrated system is probably not great when compared to the much higher cost of building the system

Response:

Greetings board, I’m coming into this thread late, but I must take an exception to the first paragraph below. So, I may be off base (my news server has lost the earlier posts). Scientific principles provide answers for the questions we ask. If there is a failure, it is most likely that we did not properly pose the question or we made an error while determining the solution. As a modeler of energy systems my major obstacles to the truth are: 1. The actual system is so far removed for a known “textbook” example that it all we can do is guestimate interaction (i.e. convective heat transfer from an irregularly shaped surface). 2. The question can be accurately posed, but we do not yet have the analytical techniques and/or computing power to determine the solution. So, there is no trade-off with thermodynamics. As Bill Nye says, “Science Rules”. However, real life energy systems can be highly complex and operation is chaotic. The trade-off is usually economics. Complex energy system may (on paper) have impressive metrics, but they may be very costly to operate and maintain. Cheers, Tim Dieruaf p.s. Again, my apologies if this response is off base. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I think this very neatly summarizes the trade-off between thermodynamics and practicality. The laws of physics don’t give all the answers. When I constructed my greenhouse I tried to avoid such complexities as movable vanes etc. The only automatic device is a differential thermostat, and it is a mass-production unit from solar pool heaters (a viable technology in wide use). Nevertheless, I also think that this post illustrates how there is a lot of room for improvement in the way we harness energy to meet everyday needs. Look at the progress being made in automobiles and computers (some people would say not always successful). If petroleum gets more expensive, and industry is able to agree on standard designs, integrated systems will I think become more viable in the future. Cheers Interconnecting all the things that need heat, need cold, make heat and make cold adds complexity and cost. You can’t have a “fridge repair guy” work on the fridge, because you need a systems guy who understands how it interacts with the hot water heater and external air intakes (for not running the fridge compressor at all during cold weather). You also cannot buy a fridge that will interconnect either now or when it needs replacing – you must build the system, or have it built, and you must keep it in repair as a system.solar pv panel kits  You need to run the ductwork and piping in the house to make it work. You need the sensors and controllers to make it work correctly. …. From an owner point of view, you need to be a pretty good systems anaylst to keep a whole house integrated system running, long-term. …. The reduced energy use (“savings”) of an integrated system is probably not great when compared to the much higher cost of building the system

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