An overview of the SolarWall solar air heating system in Lower Fort Gary, Manitoba. This solar thermal system leverages solar gain to deliver energy cost savings to the Parks Canada facility. Using the heat of daylight energy this large solar panel reduces the energy costs associated with heating large buildings. Heating and ventilation represent the largest energy costs here in Canada and using this Canadian invented solar heater has delivered direct energy savings, which some might call energy income, for this public facility.
For further information on Solar Air Heating technology:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_a…
NREL – Solar heated air cuts heating costs:
http://solarairheating.org/media/NREL…
SolarWall systems in Atlantic Canada:
http://www.my-generation.ca
SolarWall Inventor:
http://solarwall.com/en/company-info.php
Close up look at SolarWall at Frito Lay in Nova Scotia:
*********************************
Transcript:
At lower Fort Gary greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced by ten tonnes a year by the simple installation of a solar wall on the visitor reception center
This is a very simple technology that we’ve installed but it’s absolutely great for reducing greenhouse gases and energy consumption in the building.
From an operational point of view this is the greatest technology in the world because you don’t have to do anything with it.
What we have here is basically a perforated sheet metal wall , painted a very dark brown black type of colour, and what you see here is the actual void . So the void that you’re looking at is probably six to eight inches and it’s simply – air comes in, we heat it up, through natural convection that occurs and we move it through our air handling units and into the building.
The amount that heating requires depends on the outside ambient temperature,
so instead of taking air that’s -30c, heat it up and then put it into the building, we take air that’s heated to probably about 0c , +2 to +3 degrees.
so what happens then, once the air is pre-warmed, we move it through this duct work, and as you can see if you follow the HVAC duct down, we bring it to a conventional air handling unit that uses natural gas to warm up the air.
what this system allows us to do is instead of having to warm up air that’s say minus thirty to minus forty, it allows us to warm up air that could be coming in at five, ten degrees, thus we use a lot less natural gas to heat up that air to a temperature that’s acceptable, that’s ambient for our inside operations.
From October to November you get a temperature here on average of about -8 to -12 degrees, with this heating up we can pretty much take this air and move it into the building without actually heating it.
And you get into January and February which in Manitoba is a very cool time of the year, when you get temperatures of -30 to -40, degrees sometimes, we basically use probably half of what we used previously heating up the air.
From a maintenance point of view this is great – there’s no moving parts on this feature, there’s no real maintenance other than washing it once every 5 or 6 years.
It’s a very simple technology, it’s an architectural feature, you can do murals on this type of feature, you can incorporate whatever aspect you like.
It’s simple, its easy to maintain, lasts 25 to 30 years, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by a huge amount because you’re not using as much natural gas to heat your building.
Post time: Jun-22-2017