Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Solar Thermal

Research shows that an average household with an electric water heater spends about 25% of its home energy costs on heating water.

Solar water heaters offered the largest potential savings, with solar water-heater owners saving as much as 50% to 85% annually on their utility bills over the cost of electric water heating.

You can expect a simple payback of 4 to 8 years on a well-designed and properly installed solar water heater. (Simple payback is the length of time required to recover your investment through reduced or avoided energy costs.)
Solar water heaters do not pollute. By investing in one, you will be avoiding carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and the other air pollution and wastes created when your utility generates power or you burn fuel to heat your household water. When a solar water heater replaces an electric water heater, the electricity displaced over 20 years represents more than 50 tons of avoided carbon dioxide emissions alone.


The bottom line is...

Solar water heaters will save you some money and help the environment.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There's a surprising article in today's Indy, with Rics (surveyors) claiming that solar thermal panels take more than 100 years to pay back their installation cost.

Well, if they're basing it on August 2008 weather, fair enough, but otherwise I'm very surprised by that. PV panels, maybe, but the cost of piping, a tank and some plastic sheets against the provision of hot water?

Is there something Rics knows that the nation of China doesn't? I saw their apartment roofs covered in solar thermal units everywhere I went.

What do you make of that? See:-

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/solar-panels-take-100-years-to-pay-back-installation-costs-917202.html