Super Heat Conduction Heat Pipes Vacuum tubes are relatively new to the New Zealand market however they have been used in Asia and Europe for many years. They are quickly taking over the flat panel market as they prove themselves to be more efficient and as the market volume increases the manufacturing cost have significantly dropped resulting in a considerable price advantage. The technology itself has improved to now supply systems such as our High Performance tubes to be over 30% more efficient than current flat panel technology and other evacuated tube systems.

SPLIT SYSTEMS The Sunshine Solar split system uses a pump to transfer water around the solar loop to collect the heat from the solar panels when powered by the sun. This is via a differential controller which will activate and deactivate to ensure maximum panel efficiency. As the system is pumped the cylinder can be place anywhere in the house or roof space. Thermosyphon systems are also available but generally not recommended.	Confidence of automatic back up Heating. Direct Open Loop Heating minimises the heat losses of added heat exchangers
SOLAR CYLINDER To get the most benefit of the solar water heating a solar cylinder is most commonly used. The differences between this and a conventional cylinder  is they have a raised element (typically at the mid point), and, it will have flow and return pipes for the solar panels already in place. Sunshine Solar has installed and modeled for optimization many systems to ensure we can recommend you the best possible configurations.
RETROFIT TO EXISTING CYLINDERS To save money on a new cylinder we can attach to existing cylinders. Elements are run on a timer system to ensure the element does not come on during high sun periods. The flow and return to the solar panel are normally attached to the cold water entry of the cylinder.	Simple Installation   Maintenance Free
ELECTRIC OR GAS BOOST The electric or gas auxiliary heating is triggered by the controller during periods of low sunshine. The controller minimizes the time that this auxiliary heating comes on but will ensure that these system work as a backup when required.  For systems running “instant gas” a storage cylinder is required to be used as a solar store and as a preheat to the gas califont. If the solar preheated water is up to 60C it will divert past the gas califont. When this not the gas will give it a boost . There are many configurations of this depending on cylinder size, water usage and preference.

How does it work? An evacuated tube is a glass tube with a vacuum inside of it.  This is a similar principle to that of double glassing, stopping most conductive and reflective heat losses.  Inside the tube is a copper pipe encasing a heat transfer liquid that transfers the heat to the top of the heat pipe element section of the tube which in turn heats the water in the manifold. This liquid is cooled by the water flowing past and as such convects back to the base of the copper heat pipe to be reheated. This cycle continues taking heat from the collector area to the element part of the heat pipe providing a very efficient heat transfer mechanism to the hot water supply to your cylinder.  Aluminum fins coated with highly conductive Aluminum Nitride increase the collector area of each heat pipe. A reflector behind the tube concentrates the sunlight that shines through the gaps in the tube back into the tube.

Each heat pipe is plugged into a manifold through which the water from the bottom of the cylinder is recycled heating this water before returning it back into the mid-section of the cylinder hot, this is controlled by a small WILO pump and controlled for optimum performance by a controller also supplied.