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Stagnation temperatures in vacuum tube collectors can reach up to 300°C, causing severe strain on the components inside. Safety equipment needs to be installed at high cost to deal with these extreme temperatures in what has so far been the only way of protecting the entire system from these high temperatures and the resulting system pressures, and cavitation damage. This situation prompted the project with the working title Heat Pipes in Solar Collectors - Principles of Thermodynamics, Evaluation and New Approaches to Integration that drew to a conclusion last month. The project was headed by the Institut für Solarenergieforschung GmbH solar energy research institute in Hameln, Germany, with the aim of developing solar collectors to prevent overheating by limiting peak temperatures and avoiding the above issues. Testing involved intrinsically safe heat pipes from NARVA integrated into different collector systems, and the results from the project also supported a modification on the heat pipe for specific temperature ranges.

The full report on the results of this project is available on the following BINE information service web page: www.bine.info

NARVA heat pipe vacuum tubes feature a variable temperature limit ranging between of 100 and 160°C, and are perfectly suitable for any solar thermal application supporting siphon systems, heating and hot water as well as process heat generation.