Is Solar Water Heating Reliable?

One of the issues that came up in the interviews at World Environment Day was the question of the reliability of solar water heating.

Some people have experienced problems with earlier systems that did not have enough capacity to handle a few days of grey skies.

There are three components to that issue

1) Tank Size

All tanks have great insulation, so that the heat-loss over a few days is minimised. The more important factor is how much hot water is used. According to the Sustainable Energy Development Office of WA an average person uses 50 Litre of hot water per day.

The water in the tank heats up to 90 degrees in summer, but gets mixed with cold water when it comes out (to 50 degrees, so that no one gets burnt). That means a 300 Litre tank has a capacity of close to 550 Litre of 50 degree water. So for a family of four, it can last close to 3 days without any sunshine.

So the bigger the tank, the more hot water you bank.

2) Solar Water Heating Collectors

Efficiency of collectors depends on a lot of factors. We check them all on this website and then again before installation to make sure you get the best efficiency out of your system.

We use the highly efficient technology in all our split solar hot water systems that can face anywhere from North-East to North-West to work well. You need to get an absolute minimum of 4 hours of sunlight on the panels to successfully heat your tank.

3) The Booster

The last element in solar water heating is the booster. It has a thermostat that is set to 60 degrees. So whenever the water temperature falls below 60 degrees, it automatically heats it up.

Conclusion

Is solar hot water heating reliable? Yes absolutely. The technology is well matured since the 1950’s. It is highly efficient (up to 80% of the sun’s energy is turned into hot water) and it has a reliable backup with the booster.

Tags: booster, collection panel, solar water heating, tank size

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 4:00 pm and is filed under FAQ. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.