Solar Water for Latin America

About

Low-cost plastic solar water heater that saves up to 70% in LP gas consumption in the home and serves as a storage tank for drinking water. What specific problem are you trying to solve? The first area of opportunity is detected in the importance of the use and high cost of LP gas in homes and its strategic role in the production of sanitary hot water, since in countries such as Mexico up to 54% of energy consumption is used for this activity, which is considered a basic service for adequate sanitary conditions in homes. Secondly, there are the high costs of commercial technologies to take advantage of solar energy in the domestic sphere in relation to the low purchasing power of most of the population. Proof of this is the Mexican case, since 1970 the first solar heaters began to be marketed to produce domestic hot water in homes, 52 years later less than 7% of households have commercial equipment that allows them to take advantage of this renewable energy to improve their quality of life. In Mexico there is little use of the abundant resource that solar energy represents in the domestic environment for the generation of hot water for sanitary use, which means that families continue to spend a significant part of their income on paying for the most popular energy sources such as LP gas and electricity. Of the 35 million existing homes, only 2 million have a commercial solar water heater, despite the fact that for more than 50 years this equipment has been offered in the national market, so the majority of the population does not use this clean and renewable energy. Therefore, an investigation was carried out using data from INEGI and interviews with users who do not have solar thermal equipment, yielding the following information: - The main cause of this problem is the low purchasing power of most of the population, which allocates its precarious resources to meet basic needs such as food, housing and health, to which we must add that in many poor areas there are public safety problems that hinder the maintenance of equipment. - The second cause is that despite having a commercial solar heater in the home this does not ensure a sufficient and constant supply of hot water when weather conditions are not ideal for solar collection, such is the case of Mexico City whose rainy season can last up to 7 months, so it is necessary to have support systems or equipment such as heaters or tank heaters that operate based on LP gas or electricity which increases costs between $ 2000.00 and $ 3000.00 to which must be added the energy expenditure they represent. Our solution consists of an innovative solar heater 65% cheaper than the solar heaters that currently exist in the market, which allows annual savings of up to 70% of the LP and natural gas consumed in homes for the production of domestic hot water. Another function it has is to serve as a storage tank for drinking water, which is of great importance in countries that suffer from water shortages such as Mexico. We developed a new technological proposal that simplifies processes and reduces the number of components substantially lowering manufacturing costs as well as those associated with its installation in homes where we propose new schemes in the hydraulic network. We resort to the concept of self-contained solar heaters where the solar collector and the thermal storage tank are part of the same structure, replacing metals with long life and low cost plastics. Our proposal is specially designed for the climatic and socioeconomic conditions of Latin America. We validated our prototype in a real environment for more than 18 months and obtained excellent results, so we are looking for help for its massive launch in Mexico and all Latin America. The concept of the project is a solar water heater that also serves as a storage tank for drinking water and whose cost is equal to that of a common storage tank. Our plastic solar water heater has a manufacturing cost of $ 100.00 US and allows users to recover their investment in less than a year since it reduces by 50% the LP gas cost, which means an annual savings of $ 140.00 US.Another benefit of this new solar heater is that it reduces the carbon footprint of households avoiding the annual discharge of 360 kg of GHG derived from the savings of 120 kg of LP gas, with a useful life of more than 20 years and requiring zero maintenance, it becomes the most economical and efficient alternative worldwide to take advantage of solar energy in the domestic sphere to improve the quality of life of the poorest and mitigate global warming. Our proposal is based on a technological innovation that simplifies and unifies the processes of capturing solar energy and its storage in the form of hot water using the concept of self-contained solar heater, in which the solar collector and the thermal tank are merged into a single structure. The big problem that we have detected in the commercial technology of evacuated tubes and flat panels is that its different components are very expensive and with a very limited price-efficiency, highlighting the storage systems which are based on steel containers with different layers of thermal insulation which aim to keep the liquid at a high temperature compared to the temperature of the surrounding environment. The higher the thermal differential, the more insulation is required, which increases the cost proportionally. Our plastic solar heater has several advantages over current commercial products: A plastic-based solar heater can supply a larger volume of water, sufficient for a family of four adults, at a comfortable temperature suitable for personal hygiene, which can be used directly without the need to mix in the final stage with cold water to adjust to the comfortable temperature, unlike the current commercial technology of heaters using evacuated tubes, where a small volume of water reaches temperatures of 50°C to 70°C but when the user wants to use it, it must be mixed with cold water to bring it down to a temperature between 30°C and 37°C, but its great disadvantage is that very little hot water is generated, which forces users to resort to support systems based on LP gas, natural gas and electricity to meet their demand for domestic hot water. Another great advantage of our plastic solar water heater is a greater energy independence since it can satisfy up to 100% of the demand in a household of 4 adults for 7 months a year without requiring another energy source and 5 months a year, the coldest ones, it can reduce the consumption of LP or natural gas by 50% in the production of domestic hot water, features not offered by any of the systems or products that currently exist in the market worldwide. Finally, we have the advantage of the low cost of scaling and massive implementation of the technology, since its manufacturing process is identical to that of a common water tank, that is to say, the same processes, machinery and materials are used that are currently used by hundreds of companies throughout Latin America dedicated to the manufacture of plastic containers for drinking water.