My Buzz Point: 2009

What Are Solar heating systems? The increase in population, day by day increasing pollution, rampage and unplanned usage of natural resources have created a huge ecological pressure. With ever-increasing demands of energy, and depleting conventional resources of energy, it's high time that we look for other non-conventional sources of energy so as to compensate for loss.

Among non-conventional resources of energy, solar energy has been realized of its immense untapped potential. A major chunk of energy supplied by non-conventional sources is through solar energy.

Solar energy finds it's main application in heating systems, be it a solar water heater or a solar cooker. These solar devices are being looked upon as a suitable alternative over traditional geysers or heaters.

Today there are several solar heating devices available in market. Major of this being solar water heater and a solar cooker. A solar water heater acts as a replacement for electric/gas geysers. They are placed on top of buildings. A solar water heater comprises of an inlet, a tank and an outlet. Normal supply water is poured in tank; the tank is connected to a heating chamber (It comprises of coiled metallic tubes, painted in black). These tubes are exposed to direct sunlight. Now water from tank runs through these tubes and becomes hot and this water is poured again into the tank. This cycle is repeated continuously until the water in tank becomes hot, which is supplied through outlet. This is a continuous process; the hot water is above the cold water inside tank.

With the increasing concerns of global warming, and domestic fuel becoming expensive solar cookers have grown immensely in popularity. A solar cooker is a big box painted black, inside which utensils are kept, they too are painted black. Raw food items are kept in the utensils and then the cooker is kept in open. The mirror present on solar cooker is adjusted such that it reflects maximum sunlight in the box. There have been several modifications over this simple model, such as use of parabolic reflectors instead of a plane mirror.

A parabolic reflector is capable of concentrating energy over a specific area, and thereby can generate temperatures as high as 600 degree Celsius. Another modification made is use of auto adjustments in the cooker. Nowadays the reflector panel of the cooker can automatically focus itself where is faces maximum light.

Thus there it is clearly seen that there is immense potential in solar energy, and we should encourage use of above devices for a cleaner and greener environment.

Solar Heating Systems