An Investigation of the use of Solaria as a source of Heat for House in New Zealand

Abstract

A solarium is normally viewed as an arcane method of capturing solar radiation to warm houses since the cost of heating them at night is likely to exceed the energy gains during the day. However with modern “smart building technologies” it may be possible to control the parameters of the building so that day time solar gains can be stored and nighttime losses minimized. In general application solaria are most effective at very low level of incident solar radiation whereas mass wall and Trombe wall systems are more efficient at higher level of incident solar radiation. However the heating problems of NZ buildings are important only in the cooler lower incident radiation part of the year. We are experimenting with a thermosyphon passive solar hot water collector system mounted on a north facing part of the solarium which could minimise summer overheating of the Solarium and provide hot water throughout the year to household. Excessive solar heat gain in summer is intended to be captured in insulated water storage tanks. Blinds/movable insulation is deployed to prevent excessive heat loss through the solarium’s glazing at night. This model requires meteorological data to approximate the sizing of the system for the building requirement and is sensitive to meteorological parameters such as solar radiation, temperature and wind. A numerical calculation corresponding to the thermal analysis of the building and meteorological data yields the scale and nature of the system that would perhaps give adequate living conditions all year or, if smaller, for a large part of the year.