DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AN OFF GRID SOLAR COMBISYSTEM USING PHASE CHANGE MATERIALS

Project Title

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AN OFF GRID SOLAR COMBISYSTEM USING PHASE CHANGE MATERIALS

Project Area of Specialization Mechanical EngineeringProject Summary

This project is about the development of an off-grid solar combisystem with built in latent heat storage unit for active space and water heating during day and passive space heating during night. A flat plate solar collector and a PV panel with a Li-on battery power the autonomous system. Our system will be capable of heating the water to about 45 ?C and the system can heat the space to a comfortable temperature zone. By using this system we will obtain:

• A Higher Energy Saving Ratio
• Zero Operating Cost
• Passive Heating in Night

The successful completion of this project will get the factors mentioned above. Moreover, It is evident that the off-grid phase change materials integrated solar combisystem can lead to significant energy saving in residential buildings both in colder and warmer weather conditions.

This project is widely in demand in current time, many of the countries have adopted implementing the renewable energy projects. We will sell our project by fulfilling the heat capacity required by our customers. Then according to the most common heat capacity demand, we will introduce two variants of our projects, one will small heat capacity and other with large. We will give our brand a name then we will come towards the advertisement phase. We can further distribute brochures to increase our product sales. We can also talk to the owners of some business stores and can make our project introduced in the market.

Our project requirement is increasing day by day. As the fossil fuels are getting costly and limited day by day, the people are shifting to the renewable energy technologies because it is operating cost free. So, every house, office and commercial buildings would love to convert to the renewable heating system in which they don’t have any operating cost. Electric space and water heaters require constant supply of electricity which have a very high cost. So, our project would be more attractive to the customers. They will surely like to shift to renewable energy equipment’s like now a days everyone is installing solar panels to get energy. We will sell our product by using digital marketing and we will also share about the benefit and reliability of this project in the newspaper. After that we made an approximately price of our project by calculating the total cost of the project. Giving a rough estimation the cost for a small system will be around 1 lac. We justify the quality of our product to them and ensure them about this idea and quantity and advantage of this product for their daily use in regular life.

Project Objectives

The main objects of this project are,

• Know the advantages and disadvantages of renewable and non-renewable energy sources.
• Know the main steps involved in converting an energy source into electrical energy.
• Be able to suggest reasonable alternative technologies for producing electricity in the local area.
• The key aspect of this project would be high heat storage between low temperature ranges.
• Extensive testing on experimental setup to enhance the melting fraction and reduce the melting time.
• Fabricate the system that store the maximum energy.
• The results will also be compared with the models analyzed in other research papers in order to check the optimization and enhancement of the system in this project. 

Project Implementation Method

The completion of the project is broken down into different sub-phases which primarily include the comprehensive literature review of different geometries, selection of design parameters, CAD and Visio modelling, fabrication of experimental setup, extensive testing on it by varying parameter and numerical modeling and report writing. 

Gantt Chart of the project in which we tell us about the duration of months that how much time we utilize for the completion of the project and which steps we done for it. We do comprehensive review of the previous work, Literature review, Fabrication and Development of experimental setup, Testing, Report writing and at the end Final presentation of the FYP project.

Benefits of the Project

This project has following advantages:

• Solar energy is a renewable and can be utilized for storage of energy (charging) throughout a day time, and delivering(discharging) it at night time, especially for winter heating of the space and improving the degree of thermal comfort.
• This project can be used as an energy source in the power plants due to its low cost and availability.
• The PCM based parabolic trough collector is very applicable in industries. It is also applicable in power plants.
• The production of electricity is low in our country, heat exchangers can be used to reduce by the difference between off peak and peak electricity production.
• These can be used to save the electricity cost by storing the energy during off-peak periods and utilizing it during peak periods. For example, electricity cost is much cheaper at nights
• It will bring the operating cost of the space and water heating down to zero.
• It will not be that much difficult to maintain.
• If our project is successfully automated then it will not prone to human error.
• It will reduce dependency on fuels with high price volatility.
• It will reduce CO2 emissions worldwide keeping the environment clean and green.
• It have no power outages.
• Easy alternative for rural areas.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Multitube Heat Exchanger is the main component of the project. This heat exchanger is being to exchange the heat from the Hot Transfer Fluid (water) to the PCM and results in charging the PCM and also it results in discharging the PCM when the cold water is flowing from the tubes of the heat exchanger. This exchanger is made up of steel with copper tubes inside it. The diameter of the tube used is 1 inch and the length of the heat exchanger is 700 mm. The total diameter of the MTHX is 8 inches. 

Our system will be off-grid. We are not using any conventional electricity. Solar panels are used to drive the water pumps by using the electricity stored in the battery. The solar geyser used will be producing hot water to be used to charge the PCM. The maximum output temperature is 70 Degree Centigrade which will easily melt our PCM (Stearic Acid) which has a melting point of 52 Degree Centigrade. 

The system is completely automated and controlled by microcontrollers. It will automatically start and stop the water loop when the desired temperature varies.

The temperature rise is measured by a controlled space of 2 by 2 feet which will be heated to make the temperature rise by about 15 degrees centigrade by using another heat exchanger. The working and performance of our project are measured by achieving the temperature rise in the controlled space.  

Final Deliverable of the Project Hardware SystemCore Industry Energy Other IndustriesCore Technology Clean TechOther TechnologiesSustainable Development Goals Affordable and Clean Energy, Sustainable Cities and Communities, Climate ActionRequired Resources

Item Name	Type	No. of Units	Per Unit Cost (in Rs)	Total (in Rs)
			Total in (Rs)	78300
PV Panel (50W)	Equipment	1	4500	4500
Solar Collector (100L)	Equipment	1	35000	35000
Exide Solar Battery	Equipment	1	7200	7200
solenoid Valves	Equipment	7	900	6300
Temperature Sensor	Equipment	8	450	3600
Flow Meter	Equipment	2	2000	4000
Micro-Controller	Equipment	1	2700	2700
Pumps	Equipment	2	1300	2600
PCM-Stearic Acid (Per Kg cost)	Miscellaneous	10	1000	10000
Relay	Equipment	2	700	1400
Wooden Controlled Space	Equipment	1	1000	1000