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Published December 9, 2009 | Submitted
Report Open

Project SAGE Phase I Report. Solar Assisted Gas Energy Water Heating Feasibility for Application in New Apartments

Abstract

Although solar water heating for Southern California apartments was chosen because of its significance to energy conservation. It is attractive for many other reasons. The most significant of these is that of all the applications for solar energy, multiple-unit water heating appears to have the best chance of becoming economically competitive. (See Ref. 2) In this study. three objectives were accomplished: 1. Definition of a baseline system, specifying plumbing configuration, materials, components, and collector design concept. 2. Estimation of system cost and performance. 3. Identification of alternate approaches to the system and component design. enabling solar water heating to become commercially viable. After briefly examining a wide variety of system configurations for a gas-supplemented solar water heater, we chose one system for a preliminary design study. This "baseline system" could be built completely with existing technology. Technical performance of the baseline system was evaluated by a computer simulation model, using hourly weather data for the year 1961 obtained from the weather station in Burbank, California. Solar radiation at Burbank is typical of a large region of the Los Angeles Basin. Average hourly hot water demand for apartments from Reference 1 was used for the simulation of demand.

Additional Information

© 1973 Environmental Quality Laboratory. California Institute of Technology. Edgar S. Davis of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was the leader of the study team. Members of the team contributing to this report included: R. Caputo, J. Fuhrman. A. S. Hirshberg, H. N. Riise, G. Spivak and B. Zeldin, all from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Richard Schoen from the UCLA School of Architecture. The authors gratefully acknowledge the advice and assistance received from the technical staff of the Environmental Quality Laboratory and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The discussions with Mahlon Easterling and Walt Petrick concerning systems design and components were particularly helpful. R. Rhoads Stephenson's advice and support on matters of project management were of significant help to this study. In addition, we would like to recognize the cooperation and support received from several outside sources: Al Ottum of Raypak, Inc., designer of the hot water heating system used on the study building; Ed Lownes, builder/developer of the building used in the study; L. Z. Brown, Inc., which supplied detailed and authoritative cost estimates for installation of the solar water heating system in the study building. Prepared for the Southern California Gas Company. Principally supported by the Southern California Gas Company. Supported in part by the National Science Foundation, Research Applied to National Needs (RANN), under Grant No. GI-29726.

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Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
January 13, 2024