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Interesting  Hot Sun Projects

Hawaii Large Residential

This is a residential pool installation in Kona on the big island of  Hawaii where Hot Sun has dozens of installations. We are popular in this region because the high end homes are very particular about the esthetics of these systems on their rooftops. 

 

The challenge was to install 2000 sq ft of Powerstrip on an extreme luxury waterfront home protected and beautified with western red cedar shingles. We used stainless steel anchors that slip between shingles and create hold points.

We stitched the system to the roof with over 1000 of these innovative anchors, Yes, we can deliver solar heating  on cedar shakes with no roof penetrations.

 

Ocean exposure in Hawaii. It can take wind load. Installed in 2015, no issues to date. Owners are happy.

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Hyatt Manchester San Diego

This is a flat roof ballasted Powerstrip solar pool heater at the Hyatt Manchester Hotel in San Diego installed in 2002.

 

What was interesting about this project was that it was a replacement for 2 older existing systems.  We proposed replacing one of the grid style  systems and fixing up the mounting of the other. 

We put high level monitoring on both systems, Powerstrip and the more rigid grid style system  and collected all the data for 5 years of operation every 3 minutes proving a dramatic performance advantage in our favor. 

 

Note grid style systems should never be used on flat roofs in the first place except the coastal southern US where it never comes close to freezing. Flexible Powerstrips, no issue at all.

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Large Scale Solar Municipal Pool Heater

The Bonsor Community Center in Burnaby British Columbia is home to Canada's largest solar heating system by a factor of two. This municipal pool does not have a de-humidification heat pump system to control indoor air climate and deliver waste heat back to the pool like most modern indoor commercial pools.

This 8000 sq ft ballasted flat roof solar pool heating system pre-heats hot water for showers by utilizing the pool itself as storage in addition to heating the pool. Instead of the indoor air and the waste heat from de-humidification heating the pool, the pool is solar heated which in turn heats the air above. Many municipal pools have been solar heated unnecessarily.

 

Know your load. Hot Sun can help!

Solar Source Heat Pump

Introducing the concept of the solar source heat pump. Solar pool heaters aka unglazed solar collectors can deliver enormous energy at low temperatures more cost effectively than any other solar energy technology. .

 

Heat pumps can ramp that temperature up for use at high coefficients of performance meaning that overall the operating cost using electricity can be half the cost of burning natural gas even with natural gas typically three times less expensive than electricity per equivalent energy unit. 

 

We demonstrated this at the College of the Rockies campus dorm in Cranbrook BC with 1000 sq ft of Powerstrip ballasted flat roof solar heating 2500 gallons of storage before and after a water to water heat pump, providing preheat to the domestic hot water heating system for the dormitory housing hundreds of students at times.

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We are seeing uptake in this concept as markets around the world electrify in order to reduce carbon emissions. The solution for domestic water heating is the solar source heat pump, available only on a commercial scale presently.

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Solar Hot Water Preheater for Municipal Pool

The Minoru Aquatic Center in Richmond BC has a 2000 sq ft Hot Sun solar hot water heater for the showers including 5000 gallons of storage.

 

This project represents the most cost effective use of solar energy because the load is very high so we are always heating cold water.

 

The storage tank never gets much above 100F so the unglazed Hot Sun system operates at very high efficiency delivering energy competitively against cheap natural gas.

Hot Sun's Photovoltaic/ Thermal Technology Development Efforts

Introducing Hot Sun's answer to "photovoltaic thermal" or PV/T.  Here we are cooling PV panels by thermally connecting Hot Sun Powerstrips to the back of existing PV arrays.

 

Heat the pool and cool the PV at the same time. Our solution has proven very effective. Available in select locations

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