Retrofitted Solar Domestic Hot Water Systems for Swedish Single-Family Houses—Evaluation of a Prototype and Life-Cycle Cost Analysis

Luis Ricardo Bernardo, Henrik Davidsson and Erik Andersson
Additional contact information
Luis Ricardo Bernardo: Department of Architecture and the Built Environment, Division of Energy and Building Design, Lund University, Box 118, 221 00 Lund, Sweden
Henrik Davidsson: Department of Architecture and the Built Environment, Division of Energy and Building Design, Lund University, Box 118, 221 00 Lund, Sweden
Erik Andersson: Efficax Energy AB, Ideon Science Park, Scheelevägen 15, 223 70 Lund, Sweden

Energies, 2016, vol. 9, issue 11, 1-15

Abstract: According to recent technology road maps, system cost reductions and development of standardised plug-and-function systems are some of the most important goals for solar heating technology development. Retrofitting hot water boilers in single-family houses when installing solar collectors has the potential to significantly reduce both material and installation costs. Previous studies have investigated such retrofitting, using theoretical simulations and laboratory tests, but no actual installations were made and tested in practice. This article describes the installation, measured performance and cost effectiveness of a retrofitting solution that converts existing domestic hot water heaters to a solar domestic hot water system. The measured performance is characterised by the monthly and annual solar fractions. The cost effectiveness is evaluated by a life-cycle cost analysis, comparing the retrofitted system to a conventional solar domestic hot water system and the case without any solar heating system. Measurements showed that approximately 50% of the 5000 kWh/year of domestic hot water consumption was saved by the retrofitted system in south Sweden. Such savings are in agreement with previous estimations and are comparable to the energy savings when using a conventional solar domestic hot water system. The life-cycle cost analysis showed that, according to the assumptions and given climate, the return on investment of the retrofitted system is approximately 17 years, while a conventional system does not reach profitability during its lifetime of 25 years.

Keywords: retrofit; solar thermal; single-family houses; life cycle cost; domestic hot water (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/9/11/953/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/9/11/953/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:9:y:2016:i:11:p:953-:d:82878

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().