Solar for swimming pools

Unheated indoor and outdoor swimming pools are prime candidates for solar thermal installations.

Using polymer-based collectors, which heat the swimming pool water directly (rather than through a pool heat exchanger), a temperature increase of 4 to 7ºC can be obtained.

We can offer solutions for indoor, heated swimming pools using our range of glazed flat plate collectors (as shown right, for an indoor pool near Southampton).

With glazed collectors, a good option is to combine heating a water cylinder and the pool from one array. Heat is diverted to the hot water cylinder when the panel temperatures are high enough to heat cold mains water but not sufficient to heat the pool water. Alternatively the cylinder can take precedence, meaning it is heated very quickly on a sunny day, and then the system turns to heating the pool.

Outdoor heated swimming pools can only benefit from a solar thermal installation if the pool temperature is kept relatively low and good provisions for retaining heat efficiently and dilligently (e.g. automatic pool cover) have been installed.