Photovoltaic Thermal (PV/T) Water Heating System for Energy Efficiency Optimization

Current trends in climate change are an undeniable threat to clean, affordable and renewable energy access. One main cause is the emission of greenhouse gasses from thermal power plants. According to research on the Kenya household energy consumption, water heating for cooking, cleaning, and bathing takes the highest percentage of energy consumed in the home. To reduce the high percentage household consumption from water heating, a photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) water heating system for energy efficiency optimization was designed. The system is a solar PV/T integration with the heat pump (HP) and main grid, with an aim of maximizing use of generated renewable energy instead of the metered power. An optimization using the OPTI toolbox in MATLAB was done with the objective to optimize energy usage and minimize the metered cost. For a sampling period of $t_{\mathrm{s}}=15min$ chosen over a 24-h horizon, an energy saving efficiency of r = 27.52% (covariance) is achieved.