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Journal of Energy in Southern Africa

On-line version ISSN 2413-3051
Print version ISSN 1021-447X

J. energy South. Afr. vol.23 n.1 Cape Town  2012

 

Hot water usage profiling to improve geyser efficiency

 

 

Quinton Catherine; Jacques Wheeler; Richardt Wilkinson; Gerhard de Jager

Centre for Instrumentation Research, Faculty of Engineering, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa

 

 


ABSTRACT

This paper presents an intelligent hot water cylinder (HWC) (referred to as geyser) usage profiling system to provide peak demand side management and improve HWC efficiency in a typical household. The study highlights current control topologies used to improve geyser efficiency, as well as the design of the final geyser controller. The system consists of a PIC microcontroller used to determine individually based hot water usage profiles of the user. The controller then regulates the temperature of the geyser according to the demand profile developed. From the results it is apparent that by controlling the geyser temperature and thereby heat loss, savings can be made.

Keywords: hot water profiling, microcontroller, geyser temperature control


 

 

Full text available only in PDF format.

 

 

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Received 14 October 2009
Revised 26 July 2011

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