SOLARWALL SYSTEMS-MANUFACTURING & WAREHOUSING
MANUFACTURING & WAREHOUSING
Most industrial facilities require a high volume of make-up air to satisfy indoor air quality standards. For factories, the cost of heating this make-up air can be their largest single energy or operating expenditure. SolarWall systems heat incoming ventilation air before it enters the building, which decreases the load on the traditional heaters. This generates significant energy savings – typically in the range of 20-50% of heating fuel consumption.
“Our gas and electric bills are ridiculously low compared to our other facilities. Our gas supplier said we had better get our meter checked because it shows we are using way too little gas.”~ Demetrius Tsafaridis, President of Steelcare referring to their use of the SolarWall technology on their manufacturing plant.
SolarWall systems are sized to meet the energy & ventilation requirements of the facility, bringing in anywhere from 2 to 10 cfm per square foot of collector. Since the SolarWall technology heats fresh air, it ensures a high level of indoor air quality which improves employee comfort levels. SolarWall systems also require no maintenance.
The SolarWall air heating technology can also be used for industrial process heat applications and in mining operations. Mines typically have enormous ventilation rates and rely on expensive & carbon-intensive fuels because of their remote locations. Generating heat energy on-site with a SolarWall system is very financially compelling in these applications.
The original SolarWall® Single-Stage system is a favorite of facility managers and design professionals alike.
The SolarWall technology is a solar air heating system that uses the power of the sun to heat your building’s ventilation air. It minimizes energy consumption, heating costs and carbon emissions throughout the heating season. It directly addresses one of the largest sources of building energy consumption: Indoor space and ventilation heating. SolarWall heating also allows buildings to increase their ventilation air without increasing their energy costs or carbon emissions.
SolarWall systems are all-metal and have no ongoing maintenance associated with them.
Available in a variety of panel profiles and colors, the system brings a measure of architectural versatility that sets it apart from other renewable energy technologies.
How it Works
Buildings with centralized heating and ventilation systems draw fresh air through HVAC units.
In winter, these units consume tremendous amounts of energy to heat the cold incoming air to comfortable indoor temperatures. With a SolarWall system, incoming fresh air is solar heated before it reaches the fresh air side of the HVAC or the HRV/ERV unit, minimizing building fuel consumption throughout the heating season.
When the sun’s radiation heats the surface of the SolarWall facade, fresh, solar-heated air accumulates on the surface of the collector. The existing HVAC units draw this solar-heated air through thousands of tiny perforations in the SolarWall panels.
This solar-heated air gathers in the air cavity behind the SolarWall panels, and travels to the existing HVAC unit’s fresh air intake via mechanical ducting. In the summer, when solar-heated air is not desired, the SolarWall system is bypassed and the HVAC system will draw direct from ambient.
SolarWall Single-Stage systems can heat the incoming fresh air up to 75°F above ambient temperatures. In this configuration, significantly less heating fuel is required to heat the building’s fresh air supply. In fact, independent monitoring studies have
shown that effectively-designed SolarWall systems can displace 20-50% of the building heating load.
The SolarWall technology is sometimes referred to by different names in the marketplace, from unglazed transpired collector (UTC) or transpired solar collector (TSC), to solar heated wall, solar ventilation preheating or solar perforated wall. Whatever the nomenclature, give us a call and we will design the best SolarWall system type for your facility.
Many of the world’s most important crops need to be dried to remove moisture as part of the production process. Removing the moisture from crops such a coffee beans, tea leaves, cocoa, nuts, fruit, rice, spices, corn, etc. is an essential process that helps transform the raw goods into the final product. It is also extremely resource intensive when using mechanical drying methods that rely on wood, propane or oil. In more traditional drying operations, it is common for produce to be passively air-dried in the sun, which takes significantly longer than mechanical drying and can lead to a higher rate of spoilage, mycotoxins and uneven moisture levels.
Incorporating solar into a drying operation produces a double-benefit in terms of improving both the process of drying and the final product.
The SolarWall technology can heat large volumes of incoming air up to 55°C (100°F) above ambient, making it ideally suited for many crop drying applications. The solar air heating system may provide all of the heat during a sunny day or act as a pre-heat during cloudy conditions. It can either act in a standalone capacity via our modular SolarWall system, or as a pre-heat to traditional mechanical operations where it can be easily incorporated into tunnel, trough or conveyor dryers.
In both cases it substantially reduces the dependency on traditional fuels which has a myriad of positive effects, including:
- lower operating costs;
- decreased reliance on fuels that need to be transported to remote sites;
- counteracting deforestation by reducing the quantity of trees that are harvested for fuel;
- lower humidity in the incoming air (because it is heated before entering the building or drying chamber) which means that the air has been preconditioned to absorb more moisture;
- GHG emission reductions; and
- producing a high quality finished product that is eco-friendly and was processed using “clean & green” energy
Proper drying is also associated with a decreased incidence of mycotoxins, especially on corn (maize) and other crops. Adequate drying of crops is essential to help minimize the risk of mould growth and mycotoxins after the harvesting of crops, and solar drying is considered to be an effective preventative measure against mycotoxins.
SolarWall systems may reduce or eliminate poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) created by displacing conventional fossil fuels used in active drying systems. As countries around the world embrace the principals of organic agriculture and sustainable production, they are also looking at how their food is processed and if it is safe and eco-friendly.
For products or processes that require higher temperature heat, SolarWall systems can still act in a pre-heating capacity and displace a percentage of the total heating costs.
Each square meter of SolarWall system produces the same amount of heat generated by a 500 watt heater. By installing a solar air heating system, burners not only get turned down, they often get turned off completely for extended periods of time.
Every client can tell such a story – and every client is enjoying substancial energy savings. For instance, the Sanoma Herb Exchange California saves 31 million BTUs annually by displacing 325 gallons of propane that would be needed if fossil fuels were used instead of solar power. Keyawa Orchards, which dries over 12 million lbs. of walnuts every year, enjoys fuel savings of 1,431 million BTUs a year, with corresponding annual cost savings of $13,800. Coopeldos R.L.; a coffee installation in Costa Rica is enjoying annual savings of 25%. And on it goes.
As a result, the same technology that lets the SolarWall technology lead the way in using solar energy to heat buildings is now setting solar crop drying and solar process heating standards worldwide for both agricultural and commercial applications.
Tel: (+506) 2438-3246 or (+506) 2438-3272
Toll Free: 1(800) 2130227
Solar Systems in United States & Latin America
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