Efficiency of Solar Domestic Hot Water System: The Case of Famagusta Northern Cyprus

Due to the Cyprus’s climate and geographical potential, the ideal energy source for obtaining power is solar energy. The main aim of this research is the development and validation of a new methodology for installation of solar thermal collectors on rooftops to achieve higher performance. This methodology follows of solar geometry and local parameters. Therefore, because of plenitude of mid-rise residential buildings in Famagusta City, two cases including Haci Ali multi-story building and Social Housing Building are analyzed. Cyprus has no energy resources of its own. Therefore, more than 94% of the total primary energy is imported to the island. High cost energy consumption due to lack of consideration in design and construction phases and available free source of solar energy are important issues here. The flat plate collectors are typically connected in rows or parallel form designs so that the desired design would be achieved to provide the temperature for a given application. It has proved that the collectors do not work as well while sun duration that causes decreasing the rate of irradiant solar absorption in winter is the main problem of this thesis. The performance of thermal solar system was calculated by the performance of water storage tank volume. No changes occurred with regard to the height and width ratio (diameter) of the water storage tank. Obviously, a capacity of 150 liter is desirable for solar thermal system. The overall performance of the solar system will be affected if the volume of storage tank is increased or decreased. It is worth noting that, shading impact due to surrounding elements or neighbor buildings is another problem resulting to less energy performance for the mentioned collectors. In other words, collectors are not able to provide hot water for residential buildings when climatic seasonal and architectural parameters restrain absorption rate of solar energy by collectors in Famagusta city.