Solar thermal solutions for safety at high temperatures

The pow­er of the sun can be har­nessed with solar ther­mal for hot water, back­up heat­ing, swim­ming pools and process heat. To obtain a durable con­nec­tion between col­lec­tors and buffer tank, a robust sys­tem is rec­om­mend­ed. San­ha has safe series made of cop­per or stain­less steel in its port­fo­lio for this purpose.

As a rule, dual-cir­cuit sys­tems are installed for solar ther­mal ener­gy, where a water-gly­col mix­ture is used in the first cir­cuit. This pip­ing must be able to with­stand high tem­per­a­tures and be gly­col and pres­sure resis­tant. In out­door appli­ca­tions, the nec­es­sary weath­er and cor­ro­sion resis­tance must also be pro­vid­ed. These require­ments are met by the SAN­HA-Press Solar series made of cop­per and the NiroSan Indus­try and NiroTherm Indus­try series made of stain­less steel.

FKM seal­ing rings are used in both press sys­tems. They have the appro­pri­ate tem­per­a­ture resis­tance up to 160 °C. This is impor­tant because high stand­still tem­per­a­tures can be reached on flat-plate collectors.

Vac­u­um tube col­lec­tors have even high­er require­ments. Tem­per­a­tures of up to 280 °C can occur at crit­i­cal points, for exam­ple when the sys­tem is restart­ed after a shut­down. Here, it is rec­om­mend­ed that the col­lec­tors and the solar cir­cuit, as well as the oth­er start­ing points in the solar cir­cuit itself, be con­nect­ed by braz­ing. Brazed con­nec­tions are con­sid­ered to be par­tic­u­lar­ly safe. For this appli­ca­tion, too, the man­u­fac­tur­er offers a suit­able solu­tion in the form of 5000 series sol­der fittings.