Feasibility study on substituting electric water heaters with solar water heaters in Ghana; a case study of official residential facility of goldfields Ghana limited, Tarkwa Mine

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2014-08-22
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Solar water heating is one of the cost-effective technologies in heating hot water for domestic (residential) use. In this thesis, with the aid of T-sol software, a solar water heater was sized and installed for domestic use at Apinto ridge, a residential area located at Goldfields Ghana Limited, Tarkwa Mine. Currently, it cost Goldfields Ghana Limited about GH¢ 0.27/kWh (about US$ 0.14 kWh) of electricity used because the company falls under the tariff customer group of SLT-HV for Mines [1]. At Goldfields Ghana Ltd, a typical residential facility has two 2- kW electric heaters installed, one with 70-litre storage tank for the kitchen and the other with 80-litre storage tank for the bath house. The average hot water consumption is estimated to be about 80 litres per day. With the 600 housing units of the company, it costs Goldfields Ghana limited GH¢ 324.00 per day for electricity (1.2 MWh) used in heating water only for domestic purposes (for cooking, bathing, washing dishes etc). Prior to the design of the proposed solar water heating system, two field visits were embarked upon to ascertain among others the thermal performance of the field installations of two distinct collectors; a flat plate and an evacuated tube collector. It was observed that the type of collector did not really matter in Ghana, once the proper sizing and installation were carried out. This was no different from the simulation results of performance analysis carried out using the T-sol software. Following from these, an evacuated tube water heater was installed for one household, since that unit design is what is readily available in the Ghanaian market. The performance of the installed solar water heater was monitored for a period of six months trial (38 Weeks). Data of temperatures compiled for 6am and 6pm for six months has shown that the project is viable considering the cloudy nature of the weather and also the frequent rainfalls there. The total cost of the installation for a household of three persons was GH¢ 1400.00 and the average hot water temperatures were measured to be between 34oC and 59oC throughout the 38 weeks of the motoring of the installed system Per the economic analysis carried out, the associated electricity bill currently for a month for the electric waters installed in the 600 housing units stands at GH¢ 9396.00. The amount spent on electricity bill on water heating in only a month can purchase seven 100-litre evacuated tube solar water heaters. This project can be considered to be feasible and cost effective based on the thermal performance and economic analysis of the installed water heater.
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A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the degree of Master of Science in Renewable Energy Technologies, 2014
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