Experimental Study of Hot Water Generation from Flat Plate Solar Collectors under Tropical Climate of Phnom Penh

The thermal performances of the homemade flat plate solar collectors for hot water generation are experimentally investigated. There are two​ 80×150cm solar collectors without and with stones stored at the backside of the absorber plate to store specific amount of heat. The water storage capacity is 200 liters and 3.4 l/mn of water flowrate circulating through the collectors. The experiments are conducted during daytime 8:00-18:00 in July (July 07, 2023) under the tropical climate of Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia. The results show that the collectors could generate hot water at temperature up to 42.3oC for household hot water applications. In addition, the daily total heat generated from the collectors is found to be around 11.4 MJ. During the clear-sky daytime, the solar collector with stones at the backside provides a high thermal efficiency of up to 81% while the collector having no stone generates the thermal efficiency of 76%.