Became Expert Solar Thermal Energy System Designer (Revit)

Explore solar energy as a renewable and abundant form of light and heat from the sun, and contrast it with non-renewable resources like coal, petroleum, and natural gas.

Explore the two types of solar energy: photovoltaic and solar thermal, and how panels convert sunlight to electricity for homes while thermal systems heat water or power turbines.

Explore the classification of solar thermal energy, comparing active and passive systems. Learn how collectors, pumps, heat exchangers, and hot water tanks enable space and water heating.

Explore the applications of solar thermal energy, including electricity generation and space heating and cooling. Learn how solar thermal systems support water heating, cooking, desalination, and agricultural drying.

Explore how solar space heating uses solar thermal energy to warm buildings, and solar space cooling uses absorption cycles and desiccant wheels to provide cooling via hot water storage.

Concentrated solar power uses mirrors or lenses to focus sunlight on a fluid, heating it to steam that drives a turbine in Rankine or Brayton cycles to generate electricity.

Utilize solar energy to dry foods, direct sun or indirect heated-air, removing moisture to preserve vegetables, fruits, fish, and meat; use a parabolic mirror solar cooker to cook meals.

Solar desalination uses concentrated solar energy to heat seawater in pipes, producing steam and fresh water while separating brine.

Explore solar space heating concepts, including active and passive methods, direct solar radiation, natural convection, thermo siphon, and the use of pumps and fans to transfer heat to occupied spaces.

Explore solar water heating concepts, comparing passive and active systems, direct/open loop versus indirect/closed loop; learn how heat exchangers transfer heat from a fluid to potable water.

Explore natural water circulation, or thermo siphon systems, driven by solar heating and continuing when the sun shines. Heat water; it becomes less dense and rises, cooler water sinks, convection.

Explore forced circulation solar thermal systems, including open-loop, closed-loop, and closed-loop with drain bag or drain-back tank configurations, driven by pumps.

Explain how an open loop forced circulation solar thermal system operates at atmospheric pressure, with collectors empty when not heating, and requires high pumping energy to circulate potable water.

Explore how a closed loop forced circulation system uses pressurized piping to reduce friction. Understand expansion tank and pressure relief for expansion and antifreeze propylene and ethylene glycol in loop.

Design a solar water heating system in Revit by importing architecture files, binding levels, and placing plumbing fixtures and equipment using the mechanical template, project browser, and property palette.

Set up a Revit project by defining levels, place a solar perforated air collector and solar water collector, add a thermally protected storage tank, and plan pump connections.

Configure collectors using sun path and location settings for Istanbul, Turkey, considering winter solstice to optimize radiation; route cold and hot water pipes with headers and thermal storage.

Create hot and cold water headers in Revit by drawing pipes, setting elevations, sizing pipes, capping ends, and connecting to a main header feeding a thermal tank.

Connect cold water to the solar collector via a centrifugal pump and pipes, routing water from the cold water tank to the collector and into a header and tank.

Connect hot and cold water lines to a thermal protected storage tank in Revit, define inlet and outlet, draw pipes and connect a pump to feed the collector and building.

Place and configure valves and pipe connections in a Revit solar thermal system, linking cold city water to the storage tank and pump, to the solar collector.

Import and load an inline expansion tank from the imperial mechanical library into a Revit project, size to 2 or 4.4 gallons, and connect to the hot water pipe.