SolEnStor – Development of a Solar Energy Storage unit for increasing the efficiency and the capacity of solar domestic hot water systems

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

The general objectives of the project can be summarised as follows:

• Development of cooperation between an SME and a research institute/University, in a high-level research project aiming to produce an innovative energy efficiency product.
• Rational handling of environmental issues, promotion of sustainable development and RES in national level, improvement of the quality of life. In parallel the project aims to contribute to the realization, modernization and development of proper environmental politics concerning the incorporation of environmental research to the political decisions for the sustainable development of Cyprus so as to converge to the structures and strategies of the EU.
• Help improve the productivity of Cypriot SMEs / industry by developing a new and innovative product.
• Attract investors from Cyprus and abroad on the development and production of a RES / energy efficiency related product.
• Improve economic growth by help increasing the efficiencies of the solar water heater systems produced in Cyprus by local industries and thus making them competitive compared to those produced abroad when exported.
• Help create new job positions and maintain the existing.
• Help achieve the national targets of 13% share of energy from renewable sources in gross final energy consumption by 2020.

The main aim of the proposed project can be separated in to the following objectives:

• to increase the storage capacity of a Solar Domestic Hot Water (SDHW) system,
• to increase the cost effectiveness of the SDHW system
• to improve the formation and preservation of the stratification within the hot water cylinder.
• to decrease the discharge time of the domestic hot water tank and increase the duration of the availability of hot water.
• to increase the energy savings of the SDHW system or reduce the space occupied by storage tank.
• finally, to achieve an increase of the solar fraction of SDHW systems under investigation by at least 17%

The main innovation of this project lies to the fact that, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a plug-n-play product will be designed, tested, optimised and developed that will highly increase the efficiency of a SDHW system in the Cypriot market and probably the European.

This product will be ready-made and easy to install to all commercially available hot water cylinders in Cyprus without altering the initial design of the cylinder and thus the production lines of the manufacturers. For this purpose, several different designs will be developed in terms of shape, mounting system etc.