Review of solar thermal water heater simulations using TRNSYS

World's 47% energy utilization is consumed on heating, 27% on transportation and 16% on electricity. The large amount of heat energy substantially explains its importance in modern life style. Solar water heaters are getting attraction for zero energy utilization and becoming an essential part of modern buildings around the globe. In this regard, energy simulation softwares are widely used by designers to investigate system efficiency and behavior. These provide us convenient methods and tools to perform energy calculations and power flow analysis. TRNSYS is one of such graphical based multi-purpose softwares to simulate thermal and electrical energy systems. Its standard library includes a significant number of variable components required for simulations. Also, it can be extended to include new mathematical models. This paper presents a concise survey and review on applications of TRNSYS to analyze: Solar thermal water heaters with forced circulation and Thermo-syphon systems using Flat Plate Collectors (FPC), Heat Pipe Evacuated Tube Collectors (HPETC). A comparison between various simulation results relating to system efficiency has been also presented.