Thinking of doing a side project to hook up a solar hot water system in a friend of mine's house.
In the late 1970's my parents installed a thermal solar hot water system (closed loop). Our house was unobstructed and 2 degrees off due south. There was a 120 gallon tank that preheated the water going into the HWH. Pretty much the preheat tank was about 180F year round
So I started reading up on those types of systems, thermosiphon systems and others, and it appears due to the cost and efficiency with PV panels, those other technologies are no longer cost effective. Other problems like plumbing them up, glycol stagnation, freeze issues, etc etc make them a long term maintenance headache. A PV system can be wired up and DC fed directly into a HWH. This is the site that got me looking into it
http://techluck.com/
Two 220W panels and a small controller (but $$) to regulate the PV panel output and that is about it. This, for my friend, would be an "off grid" install an obviously the time to heat up a tank would pretty much be "all day", but it would be a big help.
I'm always wary of internet stuff like this, but it clearly isn't an "HHO" type of scheme. Direct feed DC into a resistive element to generate hotwater. I'm not an EE so, "what goes on" with the controller unit is beyond me.
Panels are about $1/watt now and she has good direct sun on the back of her house. I figure the whole thing could be done for < $1000 (she currently has a propane HWH which isn't running)
Any thoughts.
In the late 1970's my parents installed a thermal solar hot water system (closed loop). Our house was unobstructed and 2 degrees off due south. There was a 120 gallon tank that preheated the water going into the HWH. Pretty much the preheat tank was about 180F year round
So I started reading up on those types of systems, thermosiphon systems and others, and it appears due to the cost and efficiency with PV panels, those other technologies are no longer cost effective. Other problems like plumbing them up, glycol stagnation, freeze issues, etc etc make them a long term maintenance headache. A PV system can be wired up and DC fed directly into a HWH. This is the site that got me looking into it
http://techluck.com/
Two 220W panels and a small controller (but $$) to regulate the PV panel output and that is about it. This, for my friend, would be an "off grid" install an obviously the time to heat up a tank would pretty much be "all day", but it would be a big help.
I'm always wary of internet stuff like this, but it clearly isn't an "HHO" type of scheme. Direct feed DC into a resistive element to generate hotwater. I'm not an EE so, "what goes on" with the controller unit is beyond me.
Panels are about $1/watt now and she has good direct sun on the back of her house. I figure the whole thing could be done for < $1000 (she currently has a propane HWH which isn't running)
Any thoughts.