A Techno-Economic Analysis of Solar Thermal Water Heaters in Pakistan

Abstract

In today life the first and important entity to live life with peace is the availability of the energy to humans in every aspects. And the prime source of the energy is the natural resources of the world, which is facing the major problems such as depletion with time due to which its price is increasing day by day and most importantly they are bringing the climate changes in the environment very rapidly [1]. So taking into the account these issues it is highly recommended by the researchers to switch towards the sustainable and environmental friendly sources for fulfilling the energy needs. That will decrease the burden on already low amount resources and also causes no harms to our echo system [1]. Coming towards the Pakistan Energy, Pakistan is going through the intense shortage of the energy and power having high gap of the demand and the supply. Our energy and power sector mainly depend upon the crude oil and fossil fuels which are already facing the shortage. The natural gas is main source of energy in the domestic, commercial sectors. But due to the poor management and yet undiscovered reservoirs the demand of gas is very high as compare to its supply. The situation in the winter gets worst when the demands get to its peak [2]. In lots of area especially, rural areas there is no such facilities of gas so people are cutting the trees and use biomass etc. for their energy needs. Also Pakistani industrial sector such as Leather, Textile, beverages uses daily thousands of gallons of hot waters for its different process which are again highly dependable on the fossil fuels [4]. In this paper the alternative approach has been adopted for these issues, the study has showed that the solar thermal energy can play a significant role in the Pakistan’s geography.  A newly introduced technology for these issues highlighted above is the Solar Thermal water heaters. Two types of solar thermal water heaters Flat plate and Evacuated tube collectors has been discussed and compared. Both have their own pros and cons, which are discussed. Anyone can be used depend upon the consumer choice, availability and requirements, Environmental and Geographical Conditions. They both are totally Sustainable and works on the solar radiations with almost zero running cost. The analysis is being carried out on the comparison between Auxiliary heaters (gas) with the solar water evacuated type heaters. The cost saving, energy saving, payback period were found by the mathematical approach.