Blog November 3, 2011
New solar thermal water heater at EBW
Solar panels on the roof of the Centre for Green Cities building (Photo: Colin Jones)Evergreen is pleased to welcome the newest addition to the EBW campus, a solar thermal domestic hot water heater. Manufactured by Viessmann Canada, this new system will supply approximately 50 percent of the hot water demand in the Centre for Green Cities building.
But how does it work?
Six flat plate collectors harness the heat from the sun, and transfer it to a food-grade, non-toxic propylene glycol solution, which circulates through the collectors.
(Photo: Colin Jones)The heat in the propylene glycol is then transferred to the building’s cold water supply through a heat exchanger (the black box on the wall in the photo above), and this solar-heated water then gets dumped into a storage tank (next to the black box).
(Photo: Colin Jones)This tank then feeds into the hot water tank (the silver tank in the photo above), which supplies water to our sinks and dishwashers.
And coming soon, students from the ARGILE project at George Brown College, will develop and install a public interface to display key stats taken from the equipment’s built-in data logger, such as the amount of natural gas being substituted by the free energy from the sun.
Partially funded by the Live Green Toronto Capital Projects Fund, we are excited to see how this new installation will contribute to the sustainability of the site and our LEED Platinum status!
Comments
It might be interesting to correlate “the amount of natural gas being substituted by the free energy from the sun” with an ongoing spot price for natural gas…To get an instantly clear value for the savings.
The cost (and break-even point) for this sort of investment must be perfectly clear for it to appeal more immediately to consumers or other (hot-water dependent) businesses like laundromats, etc.
You should also tell us how much it all costs. Or, at least give us a relative idea of the economic value. This information would be very useful.