Nomograph for rapid technical and economic assessment of solar thermal systems for DHW production

Different types of tools, software and empirical methods to size and assess the performance of solar thermal systems are available today. A quick and easy-to-use graphical tool is proposed here. It is based on a single diagram, called a nomograph, which embeds technical and economic information, allowing the optimisation of the size and performance of a solar thermal system starting from the main input parameters, such as the specific costs of the system and the auxiliary fuel. The optimal surfaces are calculated as a function of the fuel cost through several regressions made on data from the application of the F-Chart method for a set of system configurations. The authors have found good correlations among these two parameters for given collectors types, climates and fuel costs.