Performance of residential solar heating and cooling system with flat-plate and evacuated tubular collectors: CSU solar house 1.

Measurements in Solar House One at Colorado State University provided comparison data on space heating, water heating, and cooling by systems in which flat plate collectors and evacuated tube collectors were used. Data were procured on 47 days during operation of the flat plate collector and on 112 days when the house was heated or cooled by the evacuated tube collector system. It is concluded that the system comprising an evacuated tubular collector, lithium bromide absorption water chiller, and associated equipment is highly effective in providing solar heating and cooling to a small building, that it can supply up to twice the space heating and several times the cooling obtainable from an equal occupied area of good quality flat-plate collectors, and that a greater fraction of the domestic hot water can be obtained by supplying its heat from main storage.