A Study of Water-Mass-to-Collector-Area Ratio for a Flat-Plate Solar Water Heater Integrated with the South-Facade of High-Rise Buildings

The model of the water-mass-to-collector-area ratio (WMCAR) of a flat-plate solar water heating system has been built based on the energy output model of the solar collector. The results show that the calculation values of the WMCAR model are highly consistent with the experimental values and their relative errors do not exceed 10%. The WMCARs of the flat-plate solar collector integrated with large-tilt-angle (70o-90o) into the south facades of the high-rise buildings in five climatic regions including 133 cities in China have been calculated and analyzed. For convenient use in practice, parameter relationships between the values of WMCARs and the main meteorological data have been analyzed by using the linear polynomial regression technique. The regression equations and regression coefficients in summer months and winter months have been given in this paper.