Solar Hot Water Monitoring System
Eric Edwards of EJESolar.com created a system that takes solar energy and heats water for his home. He uses Sun Strip Solar panels to heat the water. With a single solar panel Eric is able to heat a 60 gallon tank to temperatures beyond 160°F. He uses the ioBridge IO-204 to data log and actively monitors the water heating system by getting alerts and updates on his mobile phone.
Water Tank and ioBridge IO-204
ioBridge IO-204 with Temperature Sensors
Eric monitors and data logs the temperatures of the the hot water storage tank, the collectors, and the outside temperature in real-time using the ioBridge IO-204 and temperature sensors. This data allows Eric to calculate BTUs collected per day and translate into a dollar figure to track savings. He has surrounded himself with the data to make sure there is no system damage, freezing, etc., by creating a web site to view the data, setting ioBridge message alerts, and using a Google Gadget to display the temperatures collected by the IO-204.
Visit EJESolar.com to see a live view of the data collected by the solar hot water system as well as some more details behind this solar hot water heating system. Ingenious!
Screen Shot of Solar Array and Collected Data (EJESolar.com)
11. January 2010 at 4:45 pm :
This is very similar to work that we have been doing. Good Job!
29. January 2010 at 7:12 pm :
I have a friend who installed a hot water system about 2 years ago. He thinks it working good but would like to have a way to monitor it better. perhaps see some production chart on his laptop or something like that. Do you know of an add on monitoring system he could buy and integrate with his existing system. it’s 2 flat plate viessmann collectors with two 45 gallon tanks. (very short ceiling…no 80 gallon tank would fit). He already has a delta sol BS controller with a viessmann pump station. Any ideas?