Solar thermal heating systems use the energy from the Sun to raise the temperature of a body of water in your hot water cylinder or storage tank in order to offset the amount of work required from the existing AGA, gas fired or combi boiler.

Our systems use a heat collector, mounted on the roof in a southerly-direction in which a heat-transfer fluid is heated by the sun. This fluid is used to raise the temperature of the water that is stored in either a separate hot water cylinder or a twin coil hot water cylinder inside the building. During the summer our systems can raise the temperature of this water to boiling point and as such have temperature limiting features in place to ensure this does not occur.

During the winter the systems naturally perform to a lesser degree due to the decreased solar resource available. Nevertheless, the contribution for solar thermal can still be substantial, ensuring savings on your winter fuel-bills. Remember the energy required to raise a body of water from 1°C to 2 °C is the same as raising that body from 99 °C to 100 °C. Your fuel consumption neither notices nor cares to what purpose or effort that it is being used.

 

Our systems have been proven to work successfully in all parts of the UK, this is due to the nature of the resource. Our solar thermal systems require any sort of lighting conditions to function. They will perform better on bright sunny days without a cloud in the sky, but will also perform to near optimum standards in diffuse or overcast conditions.

We offer two types of collectors used for solar water heating applications. Flat plate collectors and evacuated tube collectors:

• Flat plate collectors are cheaper, more rigid and are the predominant
  type used in domestic systems worldwide. Their efficiency in converting
  energy in the sun to useful heat in the water is less than that of evacuated tube however.
  
  
  
• Evacuated-tube collectors are slightly more expensive due to the superior quality in manufacturing (a vacuum must be achieved within the solid glass tubing). This manufacturing process ensures that greater efficiencies than flat-plate panels can be achieved on an annual basis.
  
  
  

During the summer months both types will contribute similar savings, however the difference in cost will be noticed during the winter period when the superior performance and heat gains from evacuated tubes will be found over that of the flat plate collector.

 

 

Please feel free to get in contact with us by email or call 0845 189 9894 to discuss any of your requirements.