Efficiency Improvement of A Solar Water Heating System: An IoT Data-Driven Approach

This paper studies the performance of a commercial solar water heating system (SWH) in Singapore. The objective is to perform a comprehensive audit of the selected SWH in order to understand the efficiency of various subsystems, identify the rationales behind the energy inefficiency within the SWH, and then develop control strategies to improve the energy efficiency of the SWH. To do so, first, we deploy a monitoring system using Internet of Things (IoT) to collect a large volume data of water flow, operational schedule, availability of solar, and electricity consumption. Second, we identify the efficiency of various sub-systems and determine the system performance. Finally, we develop the corresponding control strategies for various sub-systems to improve the efficiency of the overall system and to reduce the operational cost of the SWH. The effectiveness of the proposed control strategies is confirmed through experiments at the actual site of the considered SWH.