Use of solar energy directly for household needs (without converting into electricity) Student: Ophir Arad
usage of mirrors and lenses to condense the sunlight, and conduction of the light by optical fibers to distant parts of the house. its also possoble to connect the end side of the fibers to lenses and diffusers better for better lighting.
values:
- natural sunlight inside the house
- non electric lighting in remote house areas
- can be used to "charge" phosphoresence materials during the day, which those would lit at night.
risks:
- it might be challenging to install a net of optical fibers for a long distances inside the house. might be easier to make with the building of the house.
- might be unnecessery.
use of the heat formed for the use of powering up a condenser motor unit of an AC/heat pump. steam or compressed hot air can be made directly using parabolic mirrors or by passing air/water through a heat storage system.
moreover, the hot air can be used to heat the refrigerent fluid when needed in the heat exchanger in the AC/heat pump unit and therefore making the process more efficient.
using residential parabolic through systems on rooftops to concentrate sulight to heat up water/oil pipes/hot air pipes.
the system might be not effective eanough on small residential scale.
use Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) for solar energy harvest in the form of heat energy. however use it in large scale, in areas with usually clear skies, near cities - where the CSP can power the nearby cities home appliances (alongside with large scale TES system). for example - the ashalim power plant
using PVT (Photovoltaic - Thermal) modules - those systems use heat conection inside the PV mudule for the sake of extracting the heat built in the PV module, therefore providing the following:
- extraction of 2 forms of energy from the same system (electricity and heat), as well as much higher total energy output.
- improving the efficiency of the PV module and its lifespan thanks to the heat extraction.
- storage of the collected heat in a hot water storake tank or similair heat storage way.
- optionally have the ability to store the excess electricity formed in the way of heat storage.
using affordable solid state TES systems such as sand/brick batteries. preferrebly the heat storing material would be a recycled waste material. for example, the israeli company 'brenmiller energy' offering a volcanic rock heat battery for industrial uses:
the 'heat battery' would be preferrably solid and won't form a phase transition in the temprature range it reachs, so there wont be any volume changes and sturctural strains to the storage tank.
the storage tank would be thermally isolated, and the TES would be heated by hot air/heat exchange fluid from the heat harvesting system. passing air through the TES when desired would heat the air, which could be used for several applications.
Possible usage way of formed heat is heating a 'shabbat plate' on demand using the hot air formed by passing it through a TES system (can be exchanged with oil/etc...).
might be much less effective the induction/gas heating - but it can use as a kosher, on demand heating method on shabbas (because heat is formed passively by ustilizing the sun passive energy).
Anatoly Agulyansky
Very good analysis and solutions. Your idea to transfer a solar light through a glass fiber for lighting within houses is excellent. Many thanks.
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