Investigation and design of performance of a solar water heating system with phase change material in tank unit

Solar energy is one of the most important renewable energy sources but it is not available every time and every season. Thus, it is important to store solar energy in different way. One of the popular methods of thermal heat storage is using of phase change materials. They have large thermal energy storage capacity.This study has been performed in province of Elazığ in november when solar radiation is low. The real solar water heating system and collector was chosen with 38o inclination angle. Its tank unit was modified to install PCM between insulation and hot water parts. In this part, two different PCM was mixture to obtain eutectic PCM. The system is supported by an automation system that it decides the system as active and passive between collector and storage unit.As a results, energy and exergy analysis were performed for both PCM and without PCM. It is shown that PCM is more efficient than without PCM.