Solar Pump

It is just the right time for solar pump to perform at his best ability when the climate is turning drought and hot with strong radiation from the sun. Therefore, in the early modern stage of development of solar energy, attentions had been turned towards solar pump. In 1615, the first set of solar power machine appeared in the world was a pump; in 1901, one set of solar pump with the capacity of 5300L/minute was built in California of the US. After that, a batch of solar pumps was constructed one after another in each country of the world, which were all thermal-powered pumps. The photovoltaic pump, which was emerged in 1975, has tended to replace the thermal-powered pump along with its mass production and increment of utilization.

The thermal-powered pump can be broadly classified into 3 types according to the working temperature that is low temperature, medium temperature and high temperature. Until 1981, more that 100 sets of thermal-powered pumps had been installed in the worldwide, distributing chiefly in developing countries. In the 1980s, Africa has once scheduled to build 5000 sets of solar thermal-powered pump; India scheduled to build 2000 sets of solar thermal-powered pump before 1985. The US also planned to set up 1000 solar thermal-powered irrigation system. Several companies from France can produced such pumps with series of pump products with the capacity from 6 to 83KW. But since that the thermal-powered pump technology was complex with high manufacturing cost, its applications was limited.

Since the 1980s, demonstrations by the international organizations such as UN Development Department and World Bank confirmed that photovoltaic pumps were advanced in technology, rational and promising in dramatically promoting its applications. A batch of photovoltaic pumps was produced in industrial countries, among which one company from Denmark sold out thousands of pumps in the world. At present, 10 thousands of photovoltaic pumps are under the operation in each region. India planed to further popularize and install 50,000 sets of photovoltaic pump on the basis of the existing 4000 sets of pump and supported by government compensation.

In China, research on solar thermal-powered pump was started in the 1980s. The flat plate concentrator low temperature thermal-powered pump was trial produced, employing diaphragm pump to lift water which can draw 3 to 7 tons of water in sunny days with the water head of 18m. Moreover, research on medium temperature solar pump was also under the way. One set of 3kW wind and solar energy combined thermal-powered pump was built in Beijing supplied by Germany. In the 1990s, China was tapping into the research of photovoltaic pump. Hundred-watt grade and thousand-watt grade photovoltaic pump were developed in successive accompanying with the establishment of manufacturing enterprises that can produce hundred-watt grade pumps in batch. Now, 2.5kW photovoltaic pump developed by China is under the operation in Xinjiang.