Technical Feasibility of Flat Plate Collector Water Heating System with Auto Tilting Mechanism

Solar energy is the basic source of all the energy needs of the human kind. Solar energy, in its various forms is used by human civilization for fulfilling its needs. Water heating system is one of them. Conventionally, Flat Plate Collector (FPC) solar water heating system was used for this purpose. However, with technological development, new and more advanced systems, which are much more efficient and cost effective, replaced the FPC market. The developed pilot scale system in the current paper tries to evaluate the performance of the FPC by inclusion of an auto tilting mechanism for utilizing maximum incident solar radiation throughout the day. Changes in the temperature with respect to time, and comparison of the temperature variations of the tilting panel and a fixed panel were recorded, and further, a suitable mathematical correlation was developed for prediction of theoretical temperatures.