I'm here today in what is normally a very
sunny place Perth, Western Australia. Today it's overcast and a bit cool
and I'm here to visit a renewable heating technology
company called Sunovate Sunovate is a solar thermal technology
and there is a prototype system installed on this roof here,
which belongs to co-founder Glen Ryan. So while I happen to be in Perth for work,
Glen offered to spend his Sunday arvo showing me around his roof
and explaining the system to me. I'm Rosie Barnes Welcome to Engineering with Rosie. So before I go knock on the door, let's just talk a little bit
about why renewable heat matters. Energy use for heating is about half of the world's energy
demand and 40% of global CO2 emissions. So of that half, it's about a 50-50 split between heating buildings
and heat for industrial processes. Currently, most of the world's
heating comes from fossil fuels, which are the cause of those CO2 emissions,
or they come from traditional biomass. Traditional biomass means burning wood
or dung or other plant matter, and that is close to carbon neutral. But it's also a major health concern
due to the pollution it causes. So modern renewable heat consumption,
and that includes modern biomass, but not traditional biomass that supplies only slightly
over 10% of the world's heat. And while this share is growing,
it's growing slowly, not nearly fast enough to keep up
with our decarbonisation targets. So we've really been making slow progress
over the last few decades towards decarbonising heat. So can we possibly expect to change this
and move fast now? Is clean heating
actually just a really difficult problem? And perhaps do we lack the technologies
to make it happen? Well, today we're going to get a tour
of one technology solution, Sunovate Solar Thermal system. I'm at co-founder and inventor,
Glen Ryan's house in Perth and he's going to take me up on the roof
to show me the prototype system that he has installed there
and explain how it works. Okay, Rosie, let's go topside. So this is our living lab. So originally we had the first three
kilowatts, now five kilowatts standard PV system. And what we've introduced is the
I guess the living lab test array. So we've got the first five panels are the Sunovate PV system. This is our,
this is a built-in PV emulation. We then have the next panel,
which is an open back and then we have a controlled roof, tin roof mounted standard panel foil back, and then we have the Solarwatt
glass-glass panel. So we're using these panels,
these four panels as controls for our experiments
against these other five panels. So it gives us a really good reference. And then we have a little solar system
and a weather station so we can actually capture
all those other ambient conditions. Okay. So can you just explain really quickly
how it works? Okay. So the Sunovate system is a PVT,
so photovoltaic thermal and we use air to cool the panels. So by doing that, by keeping the panels cooler, we can actually produce more electricity by keeping the cells cooler. And as a result of that, when we cool, cool the cells, we actually produce heated air. So we can then take that heated air and use it for space heating, hot water heating, other, you know, other sort of industrial processes. So we can just fit it to one panel and then we can daisy chain
that up to other panels. So solar panels, they work by sitting out in the sun
and making electricity. And you're telling me that they're not efficient when they hot,
that that seems like a major design flaw? Well, yes. They're like, I guess the frame or what
we're using to the sun that we're using to generate
it actually is its enemy. So the hotter they get, the worse
they perform. So they're getting better handling it. But the issue that that you find
with these technologies also, not only does it
hit the performance on the day, but the high temperature over time
is actually degrading the cells and the epoxies
and stuff that hang around it. So you're actually reducing the life
extension or life expectancy of the panels
just for that sustained heat. Okay. So these are the five panels. So we've got the little fan
that you might have seen earlier. Just underneath this one,
we have an inlet just in underneath here and that distributes the air across
the bottom five panels here . So inside there is our Sunovate panels
that sit nicely nested between this, the frame
and the solar panels. So as the air is being pushed up, that's
coming out across each one of these cells and then it disperses
and we capture that air and then we collect that air in the header
that then discharges out the top there. So we've got one inlet and one outlet
for five panels of this combination. Okay. So does that mean that the air starts off
nice and cool and it's really hot by the time it gets out the end? The fact is that the
the air comes up to each cell and then goes away from it
so we can actually cool the cell and then drag that hot air away
from the cooling surface. So that's where our actual innovation
is that we don't mix the air. So we pass it through once
and then we get rid of it. So we're not continuously mixing it. So this cell down here will be
the same temperature as that cell up there. Other PVT panels
that you might have come across. Now, they'll have a cold water inlet there
and then they'll run a serpentine type system or they'll run them
kind of up to a heater at the top. So the point you raised was
this will be much colder than the top one. So we alleviate that. And that's a problem electrically
because if that's a hot panel that's kind of dictates the whole hot cell that dictates
the whole circuit performance. Okay. I think I saw a similar system
someone else was doing, but they were using
it was a water-cooled system. So you guys use air. I mean, as a, you know, just thinking
of the basic engineering equations, it seems like water
would be a better choice because it's more you know, it's got more thermal mass,
so you should be able to remove more heat. Why didn't you guys didn't do that? So you comment
about water is it's four times it can carry four times as much energy
as air per kilogram. But it has those other complexities of, you know,
what do you do with it when it's boiling? You know, how do you get rid of the heat?
You need another bit of device. What happens when it leaks against
electrical circuits? Then what happens when it freezes,
when it's super cold? So, you know, some of these devices
have flow back systems, so they try and drain
all the water out. And you're kind of hoping
that you haven't left a bit that's going to then
freeze and crack the system. So so I know you had a lot of days
here over 40 degrees recently, probably that's like peak electricity demand
because everyone wants the air conditioner on. So let's say that the solar panels
are 80 or maybe even more degrees. What temperature are they want
if you've got the Sunovate system in. Yeah. So so we on
one of those days, those sticking hot days the built in PV temperature of the cell or the cell temperature was 102
degrees. We've got another two test,
control test panels that were up around 88 degrees
and they're amounted to a tin roof. And we were able to bring our temperature
down to 50, just over 50 degrees. cell temperature. And how much efficiency
improvement do you see with that? So for every so every ten degrees,
depending on your panel, it can be 5% to 4%. So newer panels around 4%,
older panels around 5%. So the thermal
coefficient of performance is linear pretty much all the way
through it's operation. So even even down to very, very cold climates,
they're still related to that coefficient. Okay. So if you are,
you know, somewhere where it's minus something degrees on a really,
really cold clear day, then you're still getting an increase
in efficiency from cooling it even more. Cooling it even more, correct? Yeah. Okay, So that all sounds great. But I think the elephant in the room
is that it sun happens in the summertime. You need heating in the winter time. So there's like a bit of a mismatch,
you know? Well, and it's a good point. So we got a seasonal mismatch. So what we're seeing,
you know, with examples like Denmark and Netherlands is
they're starting to use seasonal storage. And those seasonal storage
are connected to district heating systems and those district heating systems are connected to customers
and also large solar fields. So we're starting to see like large
solar fields feeding and charging
those those thermal storage systems. So this is where we think the future is,
is that, you know, as we've learned
from the recent gas crisis, people are going to see the examples
in Denmark and Netherlands in terms of lower district heating prices
and also the ability to decarbonise them through solar thermal
and other renewable solutions that this is going to be
the pathway to go. Okay and I mean, now
everybody is obsessed in Europe and and elsewhere, mostly in Europe. They're they're obsessed with getting off
gas because they don't want. I'm buying Russian gas
and it's gotten really expensive anyway. So does that present opportunities
for you? Oh, absolutely. Finally, people are starting
to talk about renewable heat. You know, we've been harping on it
for the last five years. It's kind of always been a topic
that's never, it's complicated for most politicians. They kind of understand electricity. But, you know, it's
kind of like it's it's been the unwanted child
or the elephant in the room. And it's only now that that actually
people are starting to make the, I guess, mental connection
between gas and actually home heating. And actually, in the extent
that they're using for domestic heating and they're realising
not quite the best outcome. So we will expect to see,
I guess, a huge ramp up in renewable
heating targets across most of the EU. And I think that will also flow out
to other regions as well. Okay. So that was a fun tour. So thanks so much, Glenn,
for inviting me up onto your roof. I really like the Sunovate system and I kind of absorbed
some of Glenn's frustration at how slow the world
has been moving on renewable heat. By now nearly every country has a renewable energy target, but still less than a third
have renewable heating targets. I find it strange that such a large chunk
of global emissions has gotten barely any attention from policymakers
and even activists. Until recently that is. Because now all of a sudden,
everyone, and especially Europeans, are paying attention to renewable heat,
since gas prices jumped to ridiculous levels
at the end of 2021, and then even more so
after Russia started the war in Ukraine. Now, decarbonization, foreign policy, energy security and economics
all share a common goal. Get off gas ASAP. I have already seen so many people
starting to talk about heat pumps and insulation. These are topics that engineers
have been going on about for decades, but it seemed like no one else
was really interested until now. And we are starting to see progress
on heat pump installations, which started actually
even before the current crisis and even in really cold places
like the Nordics. So with heat pumps moving in the right
direction, does Sunovate and other solar thermal have a place in the transition
to renewable heat or do heat pumps have the whole problem under control?
In most aspects of the energy transition, the fastest, easiest and cheapest
answer to decarbonisation is to electrify. So petrol powered cars become electric
cars. Gas cooktops become induction cooktops
and for heating, that would mean that gas heaters
or boilers become heat pumps. And we are saying way more heat pumps
being installed recently starting from before the gas crisis
and the Ukraine war. But depending on local factors, it's not
completely straightforward to electrify a whole country's heating using renewable
electricity to power those heat pumps. That's because global heat
demand is more than double electricity demand and peak non-electric
heat can be five times electricity demand. Now, those figures aren't quite as bad
as they might seem at first glance because electric heating,
especially when you use a heat pump from which you get more heat energy
out than the electrical energy you put in, that is vastly more efficient than burning something for heating
where you get slightly less energy out than put in
because some of the energy is wasted. So even if we change all gas heaters
to heat pumps, you won't multiply peak electricity demand
by five times, but you might say double it, which is still going to be
a really big problem. That means that you need to be able to get
that amount of electricity to buildings, so your power lines
need to be able to handle it and you need to have that amount of electricity available
in the middle of winter. In countries like Australia,
where I am now, we have pretty mild and sunny winters, so heating
needs are pretty small and there's always at least some solar power available
even in the middle of winter. In contrast, other countries
like Scandinavia, where I lived until recently,
have really long, cold and dark winters. They have high heating demand
in the middle of winter and very low solar output
right when they need that heating. So it's more difficult for those countries
to simply electrify heating. So Sunovate actually does provide
some solutions for that seasonal mismatch. Either you can store the heat
in seasonal thermal storage like they do in some projects in Scandinavia,
and I've seen some in Canada too. And then also even in wintertime,
there's still usually some energy coming from the sun. So you can you can combine the
Sunovate system with a heat pump and boost the the range of conditions
that you can use your heat pump in. It's great to have a variety of technology
options available, and I think that a lot of different technologies can combine
well to make a good overall system. So I'm really hoping to see Sunovate about
other solar thermal really ramp up fast. Glenn and I spoke in more depth
about all of these issues in our renewable heat live stream
we did a few months ago. So make sure to check that out
if you want more information, more depth. And by pure coincidence, my favorite
YouTube buddy Dave from Just Have a Think has also been working on a video
on the Sunovate technology. I guess that great minds really do
think alike. Dave's video talks
a lot more about the product itself, how it's made, how it works,
how it's integrated into a home or industrial processes, and he does it all
with his characteristic British humor. So be sure to check that out
when you finish watching this one. Thanks to the Engineering with Rosie Patreon team for their support. If you would like to join us,
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and I'll see you in the next video.
