With the shortage of urban land resources, in order to reduce the comprehensive development cost per unit of residential area on limited land, building high-rise residential buildings has become the first choice for developers. At present, the emergence of a large number of high-rise residential buildings also puts forward new requirements for the combination of solar water heating systems and residential buildings. The collector and the water storage tank of the split solar water heating system can be separated. The solar collector gets rid of the bulky and heavy water storage tank, and has great advantages when combined with the appearance of the building. It is a form of solar water heating system worthy of promotion. However, in the integrated design of solar collectors and the appearance of high-rise residential buildings, in addition to the problem of combining with general residential buildings, due to the particularity of high-rise buildings, there are also the following difficulties:

1. Limited roof area

Building roof is the first choice for solar collector installation location. The roof area is large, and the collector can be placed at an ideal angle, which is conducive to the collection of solar radiation. Taking a certain area in the south as an example, approximately 1.8m² of collectors are required for every 100L of hot water. Assuming that the per capita water consumption is 40L/person·d, and one household is calculated with 3 persons, each household needs about 2.5m² of collector area (considering the heat loss of the pipeline). After calculation, when the floor is larger than about 20 floors, the area of the collector installed on the roof cannot meet the requirements of all users.

2. Limited wall area

When the roof area is insufficient, the collector can be installed on the facade of the building. For high-rise residential buildings, in order to pay attention to the permeability and landscape effect, the south-facing rooms often use floor-to-ceiling windows or bay windows. In addition, the shading of surrounding buildings causes uneven distribution of solar radiation resources on the facades of high-rise residential buildings. Often, the top-floor residents have excess solar energy resources, while the low-rise residents have insufficient sunshine hours.

3. High security requirements for installation

As the height of high-rise residential buildings increases, the external interface is gradually affected by the wind, and the adverse effect on the stability of the collector increases. In particular, the collector is installed on the facade of the building, in case of falling, the danger of falling objects is even greater. Therefore, the safety of collector installation and selection should be paid more attention to in more high-rise buildings. In addition, unreasonable installation and construction will also damage the building structure, waterproofing, thermal insulation and drainage.

4. The adaptability of solar products is limited

Ordinary in-line water heaters are not suitable for combination with high-rise residential buildings due to the large weight of the water tank. In the split solar water heating system, the collector and the water tank are separated, the collector can be placed in combination with the exterior of the building, and the water tank is installed in each household, which is more suitable for combination with high-rise residential buildings. But the current market is still dominated by in-line solar water heaters. There are few options for split solar water heating systems, and the adaptability of size, specification, color, style and building components is still very limited.

Read more: Specific combination method of solar collector and high-rise residential appearance