What Is a Solar Collector?
• Draw a picture of a solar collector. • Label the parts of the collector. • Explain how the collector works. This question focuses on students’ understanding of what a collector is and how it works. A complete response is demonstrated by a description of a solar collector as an enclosure with a cover and a collecting surface pointed toward the Sun. It also describes sunlight as hitting the collecting surface and light energy being converted to heat energy and traveling from the warmer surface to the cooler areas (air) adjacent to the collecting surface.
A solar collector is a device used to capture the heat energy of the sun and convert it into a form more readily usable by humans. Unlike a photovoltaic cell, a solar collector is relatively low-tech, and they can be created and installed for a very low cost. The most basic type of solar collector involves some sort of liquid medium that is heated up by the sun’s rays and then transported to distribute heat elsewhere. A simple form of solar collector can be seen just by leaving a large black container filled with water outside beneath the hot sun. After only a few hours, the water within the container will have absorbed a great deal of the energy of the sunlight, and will be very hot. This hot water can be used for a simple purpose like taking a shower, to fill a hot water bottle to heat a sleeping bag, or some other form of heat distribution. More complex collectors take this basic concept and expand it, making the heat collection more efficient, and the heat distribution more dynamic
A device used to collect, absorb, and transfer solar energy to a working fluid. Flat plate collectors are the most common type of collectors used for solar water or pool heating systems. In the case of a photovoltaics system, the solar collector could be crystalline silicon panels or thin-film roof shingles, for example. U.S.
