Abstract

Once the solar water heating system is designed, manufactured, and tested according to the relevant standard, it does not mean that the system will perform according to that standard wherever installed. Weather condition and the operating condition play an essential role in the system performance afterward. In this paper, the effect of user behavior on the performance of solar water heaters are investigated using TRNSYS simulation program. The simulation is performed based on measured data of weather conditions and operation conditions in Libya. Results showed that changing the hot water load pattern affects highly the system performance by up to 14% and changing the amount of hot water consumed also affects the performance by over 13%.

Keywords: Long-term performance; SWHs; User behavior; Hot water load pattern