Stoves and furnaces – Solar heat collector – With control means energized in response to actuator...
Reexamination Certificate
2003-02-12
2004-09-21
Yeung, James C. (Department: 3749)
Stoves and furnaces
Solar heat collector
With control means energized in response to actuator...
C126S596000, C126S629000, C126S633000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06792938
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air type solar system that utilizes solar energy, where the air being heated by solar heat is provided as a heat source to heat air and water in a home or the like for heating, humidification, hot-water supply, and so on.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, technologies for utilizing solar heat have been studied and developed in the art. In the first half of 1980s shortly after the oil shocks, however, the technical developments were at their peaks. After that time, they are almost stagnant.
Among these technologies, water-heating type solar systems, which utilize solar heat, have been relatively used in common. However, they hardly attain performance goals such as anti-freeze, caulking, and increased useful life of durability.
Among them, on the hand, air-heating type solar systems are suited to be distributed over wide areas including cold regions because they are free of troubles such as freezing and water leakage. However, they consume more electric energies, which are comparatively expensive, and the volumetric specific heat of air is 0.3/1000. Therefore, a more volume of airflow should be supplied for collecting the desired amount of solar heat.
Furthermore, a solar system used for heating in a building has a disadvantage of being brought down at the time of power fails in disaster situations or the like. When a ventilation device is operated in some way even at the time of power failure to allow heat function, it will become possible to utilize a solar system in a disaster, refugee camps, and so on irrespective of nations and places.
Therefore, it has been desired to solve the problems in technical development for using heat from solar energy and enhancing the progress of such a technical development. In addition, it has been also desired to progress the technical development of self-sustaining operation of the solar system at the time of power fails.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,849,107 (1998), for example, a solar system disclosed in JP-B-No. 48299/1991 is exemplified as one of the conventional technologies. In other words, the air-heating type solar system is presented for utilizing a clean energy source, in which solar heat is collected using the surface of a roof board and is then utilized for floor heating, hot-water supply, and the like.
In the system, as shown in
FIG. 26
, fresh air enters an air passage
3
formed on a roof plate
1
through an outside air inlet
2
. The outside air inlet
2
is formed at the edge of eaves and rises naturally and gradually toward the ridge of a roof. The air passing through the air passage
3
becomes warmer by receiving solar heat radiated to the roof surface through the roof plate
1
provided as a heat-collecting metallic roof plate.
Then, the warm air is supplied to a space
6
formed under a floor via an air duct
5
by a blower fan
4
, thereby to heat the entire space of a room
7
. The air passage
3
and the air duct
5
are covered with a heat insulating material
8
in order to prevent heat from escaping.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,849,107 (1998), therefore, there is proposed a method of using a solar cell, which is one of the existing clean energy sources, as a power source of the above system, where a solar cell module made up of a plurality of solar cells is used in place of a metallic heat-collecting plate on the roof.
Furthermore, such a heat collector using the conventional solar cell to be used in the above process of heating or humidification is mainly designed such that the solar cell is used in combination with a storage cell. In this case, the storage cell may be used for the power supply by converting the generated electricity to a solar cell into an alternating current power supply and the stabilization of power-supply voltage to directly use the solar cell as a power source. In addition, it may be used for the operation in darkness or at night without power generation from the solar cell or used as an auxiliary power supply with respect to a control power supply.
However, lead-containing storage cells generally used in large quantities are inferior in durability and contain substances that have adverse environmental effects. Therefore, the use of such storage cells should be avoided as far as possible.
Furthermore, for example, a method of switching to a storage cell provided as an auxiliary power-supplying device when the decrease in electric power generated from a solar cell is caused, a method of stabilizing the power using such an auxiliary power-supplying device, or the like requires a complicated configuration of building blocks. It may become difficult to use the electric power generated from the solar cell the most effectively.
For the collection of heat using a solar cell, on the other hand, a pump for transferring water is used in a water-type solar system and a fan for transferring air is used an air-type solar system. In these cases, however, there is no consideration given to an electrical control of the amount of flow, in particular completely none in small and domestic devices, because of the following reasons.
In a solar system such as a water-type solar system, a heat medium for heating circulates through a heat-collecting portion and a hermetically sealed heat-storage tank to perform a heat exchange. Therefore, the main reason is that an efficiency of collecting heat increases as the amount of flow being circulated increases, so that there is no need of flow control. In the air-type solar system, furthermore, there is no need of flow control just as in the case with the water-type one when the heat exchange is performed by circulating through a semi-hermetically sealed heat-storage tank using crushed stones or the like.
Another reason is that there is a blind spot in the generally considered air-flowing properties of pump or fun to be driven by a solar cell. The production of electricity from the solar cell is in proportion to the; amount of solar radiation, so that it is considered that a heat-collecting temperature may decrease as the airflow increases in summer, while the heat-correcting temperature may increase as the airflow decreases in winter. Such a blind spot may be depended on that the necessity of controlling the amount of flow in the conventional heat-collecting system as described above.
Regarding the actual power-generating properties of the solar cell, a substantial decrease in the amount of electricity production, especially the voltage of generated power is caused in summer. Therefore, the flow rate of air or water passing through the pump or fan, which is driven by the solar cell, is decreased in summer. In this case, furthermore, the temperature of heat-collected air can be extremely increased. Such a blind spot is generated because of the following reasons. That is, the performance of the solar cell is rated at a standard temperature of 25° C., so that there is a large difference between the maximum temperature of the solar cell and the standard temperature (25° C.) in summer (i.e., approximately 70 to 80° C.) while a small difference between the maximum temperature of the solar cell (i.e., approximately 10 to 40° C.) and the standard temperature (25° C.) in winter.
Generally, the solar system is required to provide a large quantity of airflow in summer and a small quantity of airflow in winter. However, the airflow properties of the fan to be simply driven by a solar cell are reversed from the desired airflow.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide an air type solar system having the advantages of: solving the above disadvantages of the conventional systems described above in quest of an effective use of solar cells and displacement of storage cells and obviating the need for storage cells; and appropriately controlling the operation of a blower fan that receives electric power supplies mainly from the solar cells such that the temperature of heat-collected air is not too high in summer while it is adjusted within the desired range in winter.
For a
Komano Seiji
Suzuki Koji
Kabushiki Kaisha Ohem Kenkyujo
Koda & Androlia
LandOfFree
Air type solar system does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Air type solar system, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Air type solar system will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3225982