02-24-09, 12:25 PM | #1 |
Lex Parsimoniae
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Woburn, MA
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Backyard Heliostat for space heating?
Is it possible to use a backyard Heliostat for space heating? I think it's possible, but not really easy to understand (at least for me). I found some Boston Mass solar data at http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/pubs/redbook/PDFs/MA.PDF It says that an area of 1 sq meter in my area gets an average of 5.9 KWh per day. About 4 during the winter and 6 to 8 in summer. (With 2-axis tracking). The general rule of thumb is about 1 KW per hour. The array that I'm thinking about would be a 10'x10' rack using 25 2'x'2 mirrors. 100 sq feet. Or, 9.3 Sq meters Mounted on my old C-band 10.5' dish mount. If 5.9 KWh x 9.3 sq meters ( or 100 sq feet)= 54.87 KWh per day, then that's a whopping 1646 KWh a month! ----- Winter is when this would be used. So 4 KWh x 9.3 = 37.2 KWh per day. 37.2 over a 6 hour time frame is 6.2 KWh (per hour). 6.2 KWh is about 21,155.28 BTUh.. Did I goof up somewhere here? Is it possible to get about 20,000 BTU of solar heat (reflected into a rear window) from a 10x10 foot mirror array?? If this is really possible, it would be a pretty dang cheap BTUs per dollar.. Comments please: Cheers, Rich PS: If it works, I would build a larger one like this |
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