Hot Water and Solar Energy
Many countries have adopted the use of solar water heaters and countries like Israel have passed laws that every new house built from the 1970s should have one installed. They have a per capita utilization of 85% which is the highest in the world and their reliance on solar power has saved the country an estimated 2 million barrels of oil a year. For such a small country, this is an amazing feat in terms of oil conservation.
Nowadays China tops the world in new solar water heater installations while the US falls in the last position. The trend is however changing with a number of people opting to use solar power because of its very negligible impact on the environment.
Solar Water Heating
A solar water heater is very simple in design and if you are really interested you can even make one at home. There is a thin copper pipe that carries water and this is usually placed under an insulated glass pane. The glass traps the heat from the sun inside so that the water within the pipe gets hot. A slight variation of this is the evacuated tube system where the pipe is places inside different evacuated tubes. Since the evacuated tubes reduce loss of heat through convection, they are better for places that have less sunlight or cloudy weather often.
A simple insulated tank is placed on top of the design and the passive systems rely on the fact that hot water rises above cold water to heat the water in the tank. As cold water passes through the copper piping, it gets hot and rises to the top where the tank is kept. Another pipe brings cold water into the piping so that the process is continued. Sometimes this process is closed which means that the hot water inside the tank is once again fed into the tube so that the water gets hotter, but they are all variations of the same theme.
Solar heaters are one of the simplest and most effective ways to heat water. Usually hot water does not need to be more than 15 or 20 °F above body temperature, and this kind of heat is very easily achieved. It is only in very cloudy weather that this becomes a problem, but then a simple electrical tankless water heater as backup should solve this problem.
For more information on how you can gain from the many benefits of solar energy, visit http://sourcetecenergy.com/.
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