The Solar Heating Collector Panel absorbs the sunlight by means of a panel which is mostly painted black, to really absorb every light beam that hits it.

Solar Collector

Solar Collector

The solar heating collector is a kind of reverse heating radiator. Rather that hot water flowing  into the radiator and heat to the environment is convected, it captures the sun’s heat-waves and heats water with them that flows out of the  system to warm up  a house for example.

This type of panel is mainly used for domestic heating, shower water heating, heating of swimming pools. The water is often pumped through a heat exchanger by means of electric pumps and the heat is transferred from the solar heating panel circuit  to the swimming pool water for example.

Solar Heating Collectors are divided into three groups: Low- Medium- and High temperature collectors.

The LOW temperature collectors only heat up 3 – 11 deg.Celsius (5 – 20 deg. Fahrenheit). Low temperature solar heating collectors are mostly used for heating swimming pools. Low temperature solar heating collectors also are used in agricultural applications as drying crops. In stead of a liquid, air is heated in the collector and directly used in the application.
These collectors often do not have any glazing or insulation.

MEDIUM temperature collectors do have glazing and insulation. They are used for hot water heating and heating of spaces, homes and offices. The temperature differs 8 – 100 deg Celcius (15 – 200 deg. Fahrenheit) from the ambient temperature.

The HIGH temperature collectors are not often used for domestic use. These have parabolic mirrors (or mirror arrays) with sun-tracking. In the focus point very high temperatures can be achieved. making solar collector panels is relatively easy.