Comparison of Solar Photovoltaic and Photothermal Domestic Hot Water Systems

摘要

Solar domestic hot water (DHW) systems with photovoltaic modules have appeared on the solar market for buildings in recent years. Presented energy and economic analysis compares the competing photovoltaic and photothermal systems for domestic hot water preparation at identical load and climate conditions. Results have shown that given simple photovoltaic DHW only systems despite the significant cost reduction of photovoltaic technology in last decade still cannot economically compete with solar thermal DHW systems due to worse performance.