Swimming pool heating

In the cooler parts of the country, the pool cover needs to be supplemented with a collector array mounted on a nearby roof and/or an auxiliary heater. During the last 10 or 15 years the demand for more effective solar heating has led to the development of collectors which are designed specifically for pool heating and systems which can be integrated with the filtration equipment are now readily available commercially. The industry has grown to the stage where it is making a useful contribution to the annual total of solar heat generation.

The potential for solar heating of large, enclosed pools which are used year round, has long been realised. Typically these are associated with councils or educational institutions and invariably are gas or oil heated. In 1978 the Victorian Solar Energy Research Committee installed a demonstration installation at the University of Melbourne's Beaurepaire Pool and measured its performance over an 18 month period. It used only proven components, (160 sq m industrial collectors fitted with low iron toughened glass, copper piping, industrial pumps and controllers) and apart from monitoring its performance the maintenance has been negligible. For the 12 months September 1979 to August 1980 the solar contribution was 46 per cent the balance coming from a gas fired boiler. Parasitic power for pumps and controls was 2.4 per cent of the solar contribution. The array is mounted flat on the roof and is invisible from the ground. Pool temperature is 25-27 C.

15 160 sq m Collector array for heating the Beaurepaire Centre Swimming pool at the University of Melbourne.

It has shown that the technology is available to design, install and operate large systems whose performance can be accurately predicted. Their cost effectiveness is much more promising than that of the industrial systems mentioned earlier.

Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering