Solent Solar were pleased to be chosen by Yarmouth Harbour Commissioners and the Isle of Wight County Council to install the Island Technology Demonstrator for Solar Heating.

Yarmouth harbour Offices are the first land stop for visiting craft in the western solent and the first impression that visitors to this area have of the Isle of wight. The facilities offered at Yarmouth Harbour offices are state of the art and offer full personal washing and laundry facilities. We installed a large solar thermal system in December 2007.

The facilities' block has a high demand for hot water and this has in the past been solely provided by natural gas fired boilers. The solar system allows solar heated hot water to be fed directly into the hot water system, which allows the boilers to remain on stand-by only for longer periods.

Technical Details

The Solar array consists of 14m2 of Eco-tech 58/1800 evacuated glass tubes. These tubes are incredibly robust and have been tested to withstand hailstones of 25mm. Facing due south the solar array is ideally aligned, and is capable of a peak output of 9.1kWh. The system is expected to work approximately 1800 hours per annum with a mean average production of 16,380 kWh/annum.

Hot water is stored in 3 Gledhill 'Torrent' style hot water cylinders each having 450 litres capacity. Mains pressure water is piped through these cylinders in series and picks up heat by latent transfer. The system is controlled by a Resol Deltasol 'E' controller which provides detailed information on the performance of the system.