Monthly Archives: September 2010

Solar Water Heater

I attended a seminar about solar water heater last weekend and it interest me quite a bit! I want to share all the facts that I’ve gathered from that seminar. I hope I will be able to convey the message to you clearly and keep you interested not bored!

Usage of solar-powered water heaters is really taking off throughout different hotels and establishment where comfort really matters. Typical domestic uses of hot water are for cleaning, cooking, bathing, and space heating.  Water heaters powered by electricity typically use 4500 watts, which puts them out of reach for many.

Well, here comes the solar power heater. Solar energy is a great way to free yourself from electric monthly bill. In order to heat water using solar energy, a collector, often fastened to a roof or a wall facing the sun, heats working fluid that is either pumped or driven by natural convection through it. The collector could be made of a simple glass topped insulated box with a flat solar absorber made of sheet metal attached to copper pipes and painted black, or a set of metal tubes surrounded by an evacuated glass cylinder. It will the one to deliver and store the hot water into the household or an establishment. If you’re not sure of where to begin, try talking to your neighbors or reaching out to vendors through your neighborhood association.

The device is kind of not so cheap when you purchase it but to if you’re going to think about the monthly bill that you are going to pay when you use an electric water heater you may as well agree with me that this one will work efficiently and it eliminates monthly frustrations!

Solar Power for Heat

Critics of solar power are quick to point out that its currently horribly inefficient. And to a point, they’re somewhat correct. We’re still not at a point where the technology for solar power conversion has advanced to the point where it’s practical or economically feasible to convert solar power into electricity and use it to power most of modern society’s power needs. Mass-produced cheaper solar panels only convert solar power to electricity with 15% efficiency.

But the other day I was reminded of something while sitting outside in the hot summer sun. I went to pick up my black computer bag which had become hot to the touch after just a short while of sitting in the sun. Too often we criticize solar power for its inefficiency in conversion to electricity. But when all we want to do is to capture the heat from the sun, solar becomes a very viable and economically sound choice. It makes sense for countries all over the world that get sun, whether that in the high mountains of Peru or the sun splashed beaches of Thailand.

Take water heaters, for example. Solar powered water heaters make a lot a sense in most of the United States, and apart from the initial installation and plumbing work, don’t require much ongoing energy costs. And they also don’t need expensive photovoltaic cells. When you compare them to the ongoing costs of powering a water heater throughout the year on normal electrical power coming from a coal plant or other traditional power source, it wouldn’t take you long to recoup your initial investment and of course, you’d be doing yourself and the planet a favor.