Kingspan flat panel solar, any good?

shooter69

Hi Everyone,

Working on new build and are going for flat plate collectors (6m2) - have a quote for the Kingspan FP2000, anybody have any opinions on same or can recommend better flat panel solar?

Cheers

sullzz

Why does it have to be flat panel id choose the vacuum tubes over the flat panel but others on here swear by the flat panels

sky6

I agree with Sullzz, Vacuum Tubes are definitely the best option. Also cheaper to replace should anything go wrong.

Outkast_IRE

I also prefer the tubes, and kingspan makes good ones .

shane0007

Evacuated tubes will always perform much better that flat plate collectors. There are a number of reasons for this better performance namely:

1. The heat plate within a tube is surrounded by a vacuum which has a negative pressure. The stronger the negative pressure, the stronger the vacuum and therefore the least amount of heat loss is incurred. A flat plate collector is not surrounded by a vacuum and therefore is surrounded by normal atmospheric pressure which is affected by the surrounding ambient temperatures, i.e. if it is 3C outside, the collector will be cooled by this low temperature whereas when surrounded by a vacuum, the solar gain heats the collector with little or no losses from surrounding temperatures.
2. Flat plate suffer from reflective solar radiation. This is where the sun, as a moving target, beams radiation at the panel. For flat plate, the ideal angle is at 45° to the panel. The radiation is reflected away from the flat surface of the panel when not at the ideal angle. With tubes, they are a curved glass, therefore can accept varying angles of radiation from the sun. Summer solstice, the sun is at 60° in the sky but in winter solstice it is at only 14°. Both reflective and surrounding temperatures play a part here.
3. In Ireland, 60% of our radiation is diffused, i.e. it is not direct sunlight. It is reflected from clouds, landscape, trees, etc. Only 40% of our total sunlight is direct. The ability of flat plates is greatly diminished with diffused sunlight, whereas tubes in their overall design are able to overcome this problem and are more suited to the northern european climate.

Don't get me wrong, when the sun is shining, both flat plate and evacuated tubes will perform basically the same, however, throw in a few conditions such as the Irish weather, a moving sun that refuses to stand still at the ideal angle, the evacuated tube will have a much greater overall performance.

Last winter whilst covered in snow, my tubes were sending down 18C!

BTW, IMHO Kingspan HP range are similar to Carlsberg. HP250's will bump the performance up by an additional approx 7%.

A very important overlooked factor is the quality of the installation and the set of the working parameters of the system. Many installers overlook this and a decent system is ruined by a few simple easily corrected errors.