Dynamic analysis of solar hot water systems: the case study of a dwelling located in Italy

The present paper is aimed at the energetic analysis of a solar hot water system performed on a dwelling located in different cities in Italy, precisely, from north to south: Bolzano, Turin, Bologna, Rome, Brindisi and Trapani. The study is focused on a group of apartments, where the domestic hot water is provided by a solar system coupled with a storage tank and a recirculation loop; it is worth to mention that the recirculation loop is obligatory on this kind of plants. Therefore, a dynamic energetic study is carried out, assigned the hot water load profiles and the set parameters of the solar collectors with reference to the configurations here tested (flat plane and evacuated tube). Thus, dynamic simulations have been performed by means of TRNSYS simulations tool, setting different parameters: collector configuration and mass flow rate. Several ideas and results emerged from this study, such as the sizing process of the whole system, according to the variation of the solar fraction for all the analyzed scenarios. A digression with simulation results regarding a specific case concludes the paper. More specifically, the study of water temperature oscillations in winter and summer time with reference to the climatic data of Bologna has been carried out under particular operating conditions: i) the pump of the recirculation loop is powered all time (24 hours a day) ii) the pump is switched off during the night, except when the water temperature in the loop falls below a certain threshold temperature.