Investigations on the domestic solar water heaters with latent heat thermal energy storage system

Abstract

Solar energy related studies continue to be a vibrant research topic in these days of newlineclimate change and the remedial renewable energy usage. Scaling-up tapping of this newlinevast and inexhaustible source of clean energy to the levels required to avoid the harsh newlineeffects of environmental pollution by fossil fuel burning, is the need of the hour. newlineCollective efforts involving common people, starting from rural homes with energy efficient, accessible and cheaper technology can achieve this objective to a great extent. newlineIt is therefore desirable that, the initiation of the global mission towards greener newlinetechnology must start from the ordinary homes. The simple and common solar device newlinepopularly used by the common man is the solar water heater. This device harvests the newlineabundant, clean, and omnipresent solar energy has, therefore, become the focal point of newlineresearchers in the recent times. Great amount of contributions have been made by the newlinescientific community to convert the conventional solar water heater to an efficient newlinerenewable energy harvesting device. Most of the literature in the area belong to the last newlinefew decades and are created with the very objective of making this device more newlinecompact, energy-efficient, easily accessible and cheaper. newline