Which is best to heat water, solar thermal or solar PV? I'm building a real life test to compare the two. This is going to be a long-term test so we get sunny days, cloudy days, cold and hot. Lots of data will be gathered and shared to dive into the efficiencies of each system.

I have flat plate solar collectors to heat water on my house and garage. The garage system is connected to my radiant floor and heats the space. The house system is tied to a 250 gallon thermal storage tank for heating domestic water (DHW).

I'm using two salvaged 55 gallon drums as my tanks. By using the barrels the two tanks are equal volumes. The Thermal tank has a temperature differential controller and a 12 volt DC pump. The PV tank has a 48 volt DC 1500 watt element.

I'm using an Onset data logger to capture the tank temperatures in detail.

If you would like to find out more about why we are building this experiment, please watch our introduction video here: [ Ссылка ]

Playlist building my solar hot water system in my house: [ Ссылка ]

Bandsaw: [ Ссылка ]

Bandsaw Blades: [ Ссылка ]

Pump: [ Ссылка ]

48v Heating Element: [ Ссылка ]

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