At Eco Save Technologies we take a very innovative approach to collection, storage and usage of energy.
Partly to maintain optimum appearance, it is common to cover the whole of the most South facing section of roof. In construction, it simply consists of a thermally absorbent layer with a pipe to circulate a water / antifreeze solution, all covered by toughened glass slates.
Almost all solar installations, irrespective of supplier, have the same issue - that they collect more heat in the summer that can be used and less in the winter that is needed.
The excess, and usually wasted, heat can make it difficult to cost justify solar thermal.
This excess is even more so in the case of Solar Unseen! as such large areas are covered.
Our solution to this is to store the excess heat in large capacity, long term storage media.
This can take a variety of forms:
• High temperature storage, for example under the footprint of a house. A house with 100m2 footprint, a 1m deep insulated chamber would create a massive 100m3 mass, which can consist of the soil previously removed from it, or tanked for a water vessel. While the storage system is at a high temperature it can be used to directly reheat the internal thermal storage cylinder.
• The foundation of the building, either pile or strip foundations, subject to temperature limitations due to ground conditions.
• The ground loop area of a ground source heatpump.
All the storage media can use the heatpump as a transfer method and the higher source temperature will help to increase the COP and reduce the amount of ground area needed, therefore expanding the range of projects where GS heatpumps can be used which would otherwise be ruled out due to insufficient ground space.
The resulting combination is a highly efficient system where it is likely that the heatpump will be called to run for maybe only 2 - 3 months of the year, and then at an increased efficiency.
Andrew Spear
Proprietor
Eco Save Technologies
0800 6199244