Monitoring

The main aims of the in situ monitoring are the evaluation of performance of solar and heat pump (SHP) systems under real-life conditions, the detection of installation errors, the optimization of the entire systems' operation as well as control functions for different operation modes, and finally the dimensioning of the collector field and storage capacity. This chapter describes the in situ monitoring (so-called field test) of combined solar thermal and heat pump systems, that is, the metrological attendance and examination of real heating systems in different countries over the period of at least 1 year. Within T44A38, the approaches of the monitoring procedure for field test objects were very similar for different research institutes and are treated within this chapter in a generalized way. A brief overview about the technical equipment used for the monitoring of SHP systems in also presented.