Solar panels and energy crunch forum

May I point out a straightforward but obvious fact:

Heating your hot water cylinder in a normal way involves a circulation pump running.
A common question is: Will the solar technology improve?

Well the, new improved, technology is already here. Solar hot water panels for the last 100 years has always been the same. For both solar tubes and flat solar panels, the technology was essentially the same, heating your tank of water by heating up a heat exchange coil.

The new improved direct solar tubes do not use a heat exchange coil. They heat up the water in your tank directly. This technology has been around for a couple of years now. It gives the added benefits of better performance figures, can be installed to most existing hot water tanks, and no expensive servicing needed compared to standard systems. Simply fit it and forget it.

Solar hot water technology probably will not get any better than this. So the future has already arrived.

I do not think it matters which solar panels you choose. They both work, and will both provide hot water for your home. Think of it as like being the first on your street to get a TV in the 1950's. That is what stage we are at now with solar panels. Everyone will have on one day, but those who got it first will get one over Mr and Mrs jones next door.

Lets not make it complicated.

The basics are you will reduce your annual hot water heating bill by up to 75%. Once your solar is installed, it requires remarkably little if any maintenance. The system has a life expectancy of at least 25 - 30 years. How many things in life have a life expectancy this long? I cannot think of anything.

It's a technology with a function. It will reduce your bills for a unusually long time. It will increase the value of your home. What else do you need to know?

Yesterday, a "highly placed source" in Moscow, reported as saying the Kremlin intends to turn off the oil export pipeline to the EU on Monday, so powerful is Russian ire about the rhetoric in Brussels and warships, in the Black Sea. If this is true, we are entering a whole new ball game in what has come to be called "energy security". Even if the report proves false, the west should be on red alert about energy export weaponry.

Barely noticed in the run up to the crisis in Georgia, Russia signed a deal that gives its energy giant Gazprom control over gas supply from neighbouring Turkmenistan - one of three former Soviet satellite states around the Caspian sea on which Europe is pinning its hopes for a future gas supply. This Turkmen coup deepens our possible energy dependence on Russia as North Sea production falls.

Well who would have thought a black would be president. Change for the righteous is possible, and hope people will act on this new wave of optimism. I am buying a solar panel for my house, and i hope you will join me. Change comes, not from what we say, but from what we do. My conscious is now clear.

This is getting a bit political here. Any questions about the new generation solar panels or solar tubes, now available:

http://www.solar-panels.biz/evacuated-solar-tubes-installations.php

The Heat my Home team.

I have looked on the link, but it does not show how the solar tubes are attached to the roof? Can you help?

The solar panels can be installed in 5 main ways:

On-roof (on top of existing slates/tiles etc) In-roof (similar to Velux window)

Canopy (Great for shading in the summer if you have patio doors or non south facing roof space) Facade - (flat to wall installation, especially if you want to attach to a wall) A-Frame (For flat roof or ground mounted installations)

Or evacuated solar tubes, which are an on-roof option only.

The on-roof solar installation simply involves 4 roof anchors which apply themselves to the wooden rafter behind the tiles. The tiles overlap this giving full weather proofing. What weight there is to the panel is distributed over a large surface area so weight is not a problem.

Hope this helps.

Solar Panels Basics

From April to September instead of using Oil or Gas and Electric to run your home the sun can do it for you. You can have high temperature water without turning on your boiler and without the expense of an emersion heater. You could save loads on your yearly electricity bills by installing a small PV (Photo-Voltaic System). Installing a solar system will also significantly reduce your carbon emissions.

What is the difference between solar water heating (SWH) and Photo-Voltaic (PV) Systems?

SWH Systems should provide at least 60 - 70% of the hot water you require each year for bathing, showering, washing dishes etc. Heating the water in your cylinder using solar energy, reduces the amount of oil, gas or electric you would normally use to do this. PV Systems create electricity to power the appliances in your home or business, off setting the grid electricity you would normally use and, therefore, reducing the amount you normally spend on electricity in a year. The two systems work independently of each other. In both cases, you are saving money while saving the environment.

How it works

Fluid passes though a specially treated panel being heated by the suns rays. Once warmed a sensor will activate the pump to send this heated fluid to your cylinder where it passes through a heat exchanger releasing the heat into the cylinder, the cooled liquid then returns to the panel for reheating.

How PV works

A huge amount of energy falls every day from the sun to the earth. You can use this energy to power your appliances in your home or business. The energy is picked up by the panels which creates DC energy, an inverter then converts this to AC energy to use in your home or business to power everything including lights. If the system, produces more than you need then it will spill this additional energy back onto the grid.

Does it work?

Yes, we have sufficient day light hours to make these systems viable to the UK market. These systems are highly efficient and selected to perform well in the UK climate.

What If The Systems Aren't Producing Enough?

In this case, the systems are designed to allow energy to come into your home from the national grid or via your emersion heater/boiler. This will normally only be necessary on winter days and at nights.

A quick word about direct plastic Solartwin solar panels currently doing the rounds at the moment.

Traditional style solar panels systems usually heat up an antifreeze mixture to prevent freezing. Today we can get greater efficiency out of traditional solar panels, and the best performing solar panels and solar tubes use this method, but there are some solar companies who use a direct heating method using plastic and flexible rubber pipes to an old hot water cylinder.

These carry considerable risk due to poor quality and banned by the government grants agencies and solar trade associations because of quality issues. Performance is also poor and reports of noisy pumps being heard in the bedrooms on early summer mornings. I only spoke to a lady yesterday who had hers disconnected because of this reason. The pump is in fact a cheap car windscreen washer pump.

Reply by email by Chris Wilcox of Solartwin...

1/ Our quality feedback from DTI states we have fewer issues than other companies.

2/ Our technology is not banned by Government agencies. It is Solar Keymarked and we will be performing grant funded installations this summer.

3/ Our dispute with STA is nothing to do with quality.

4/ Performance is not poor. Carbon saved in side-by-side tests was within 1% of the very best on the market and superior to most. Now that we use a controller, we believe we have the best on the market.

5/ Noisy pumps are no longer fitted. The new style pump fitted since 2007 is quiet and is not a source of customer service issues.

Stuarts response to email...

I have reviewed your comments but the information you have quoted does not reflect the reality.

Compared to other systems, Solartwin's quality is extremely poor. (Strapping a car washer pump to a piece of shabby Armour flex foam insulation with cable ties as one example). Your quality feedback as you stated is incorrect. Your system is plagued by hard water problems and many other issues related to the product and the installation. I know this from my own experiences with your product.

The DTI side by side testing to which you refer from 2001 and are truly much out dated data. ‘Carbon saved’ is not an indicator of performance. Most solar technologies have increased their performance efficiency over the last few years with expensive research and development programmes. Your Kingspan foam in a plastic box panel, is known by the whole solar industry, to be the poorest performing solar panel sold in the UK today.

Although you may be Solar Key marked, that does not change the fact that you have been banned from the Solar Trade Association and expelled from the solar grants scheme listing due to risk as your dispute with these agencies show.

If this fact changes, then please send me a copy of your accreditation and will gladly set the record straight.

No response.