Testing Solar Collectors

The state of the art in testing solar collectors to determine their thermal performance is reviewed here. A brief history of the significant work done to establish the procedures for testing is given, including the current proposed and adopted worldwide procedures. In the second section, the basic mathematical equations describing the thermal performance of solar collectors are given as the basis for showing what information can be obtained from such tests. In the third section, a detailed description is given of the testing techniques used to determine collector thermal performance under clear-sky, full-irradiance conditions, as typically called for in most of the currently adopted standards. This section will also include a discussion of typical instrumentation, its accuracies and limitations, the results of major round-robin programs conducted to date showing the comparability of data between laboratories when the tests are conducted outside under real-sun conditions, and special techniques required to test concentrating collectors. In the fourth section, a technique for obtaining collector efficiency indoors under zero-irradiance will be discussed. In the fifth section, special considerations when testing air collectors will be discussed. In the final section, concepts for using test data to calculate all-day collector performance will be presented.

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