BTU Output of Swimming Pool Solar Panels

 
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warminmn
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Post by warminmn » Fri. May. 15, 2015 7:35 pm

I like the sound of a 94 degree pool on a cool day. NICE!


 
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Post by davidmcbeth3 » Sat. May. 16, 2015 4:48 pm

Image

My summer fun ....

 
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Post by Lightning » Tue. May. 24, 2016 5:28 pm

It's that time of year again fellas. :) Got the pool set up yesterday. It gained 7 degrees today. Only at 63 degrees currently but if I can get 5 degrees per day the water temp will be in the 80's for the kick off of summer this weekend! Yay!

 
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Post by Lightning » Wed. May. 25, 2016 8:27 am

So, if I did this right it took almost 900,000 BTU's yesterday to gain 7 degrees in the pool water. I figured with 15,000 gallons.

 
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Post by lsayre » Wed. May. 25, 2016 5:25 pm

Full overhead sunlight yeilds1,000 Watt-Hours per meter squared. That is 3,412 BTUH per square meter. Or 2,853 BTUH per square yard.

 
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Post by Lightning » Wed. May. 25, 2016 6:41 pm

lsayre wrote:Full overhead sunlight yeilds1,000 Watt-Hours per meter squared. That is 3,412 BTUH per square meter. Or 2,853 BTUH per square yard.
24 foot diameter Pool has a top surface area of 42.1 square meter so it collects 143,645 per hour thru the top. If I remember correctly the solar panels supply another 40,000 BTU per hour. I'm getting a solid 7-8 hours of full overhead sunshine on clear days to both the pool and solar panels.

Gotta figure in nighttime loss too of about 2-3 degrees.

 
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Post by Lightning » Wed. May. 25, 2016 6:42 pm

It's ashame that solar heat can't be stored to use in the winter cause there is plenty of it.


 
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Post by Lightning » Wed. May. 25, 2016 6:46 pm

Just think if that 900,000 BTU's could be used in the winter. That's worth 90 pounds of coal at 80% efficiency.

 
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Post by hotblast1357 » Wed. May. 25, 2016 7:50 pm

BIG inside heavily insulated storage tanks! Plate heat exchanger, anti freeze in the solar side, during the sunny days it will heat up the storage tanks all day, say 500-1,000 gallons of storage.

 
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Post by lsayre » Wed. May. 25, 2016 8:15 pm

Lightning wrote: I'm getting a solid 7-8 hours of full overhead sunshine on clear days to both the pool and solar panels.
You can only get a brief moment of directly overhead sunshine. But fortunately the cosine function involved here is quite forgiving. Here is a quick chart I whipped up for the percentage of sunshine utilization one can expect with respect to the time of the day. I've verified it with my solar panels.
Sun_Angle_vs_Watts.pdf
.PDF | 17.9KB | Sun_Angle_vs_Watts.pdf

 
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Post by Lightning » Wed. May. 25, 2016 9:17 pm

Oh wow, that's neat. So plus or minus 40 degrees of solar noon is pretty good. That's what I would call the 7-8 hours of good sunshine :)

 
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Post by Rob R. » Thu. May. 26, 2016 5:50 am

Lightning wrote:It's ashame that solar heat can't be stored to use in the winter cause there is plenty of it.
It can...but that needs to be the plan before the house is built. It is impressive what can be done with passive solar if the house is designed correctly.

 
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Post by McGiever » Thu. May. 26, 2016 7:14 am

I did build in some passive features when I built this home in 1978.
Originally heated with wood because youth and access to abundant supply clouded my wisdom.
Installed a 2 stage ground source heat pump in 1996...there's some stored sunshine for you. :lol:

Soon to complete a 30 panel PV solar array in backyard...excess production gets stored with batteries first and then to the utility grid. Plan is to keep batteries on float charge mainly and only use them during utility outages.

 
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Post by Pauliewog » Thu. May. 26, 2016 4:08 pm

McGiever wrote:I did build in some passive features when I built this home in 1978.
Originally heated with wood because youth and access to abundant supply clouded my wisdom.
Installed a 2 stage ground source heat pump in 1996...there's some stored sunshine for you. :lol:

Soon to complete a 30 panel PV solar array in backyard...excess production gets stored with batteries first and then to the utility grid. Plan is to keep batteries on float charge mainly and only use them during utility outages.

That sounds like an awesome project. If you get a chance, I for one would really like to see a thread dedicated to the installation!

What type of batteries, and how many are you planning to use?

Paulie

 
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Post by McGiever » Thu. May. 26, 2016 5:20 pm

Here is a teaser...took this pic several weeks ago. Much more progress than what is shown here.
This is a one man show, so progress is up and down according to other pressing needs.

I'll have to get another thread started as was suggested. :)
IMG_1946.JPG
.JPG | 257KB | IMG_1946.JPG


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