Monitoring the solar installation in historic Middelburg (NL)

Innovative sustainability is being implemented right in the heart of Middelburg’s historic centre. With the help of the European subsidy project Solarise, the Q-roof system has been installed on the roof of an outbuilding of Middelburg’s monumental town hall.

Water will be heated by the sun under the slate roof of the building on De Helm in Middelburg, where the Middelburg Observatory is located. The Q-roof system has often been used under roof tiles. Results from this system already show that it can achieve a high yield. Slates have a high density and can therefore heat up quickly.

How fast does water warm up?

We will know whether this system will actually become more efficient by mid-2021 – until then, we will be monitoring how the system works: for one year, we are tracking how quickly a boiler vessel with 150 litres of water heats up. This will give us a good idea of this system’s efficiency, depending on cloud cover, sunshine and sunshine hours.

A deeper understanding

The first reports are positive. The system is working and all basic information (like the ambient temperature and the temperature of the roof and the water) is measured 24 hours a day and transferred for analysis.

The data is being processed at the Avans University of Applied Sciences, and we are now identifying other data needed in order to produce robust analyses – like the temperature of the roof and water when the sun is at specific angles, and the extent to which the material of the roof is relevant to the process.

In the meantime, the measurements are ongoing, and the cold winter season has begun. We are very curious to find out how this season will influence the temperature of the roof and the water!