Solar Hot Water
Showers use the most hot water in a home, so it's important you select the most efficient hot water system to meet your needs - be it a solar hot water system or something else. Renewable energy can be used to provide up to 90 per cent of hot water requirements. While upfront costs for a solar hot water system may be a little higher than a standard hot water system, this will be recovered many times over during the life of the system.
Water heating accounts for about 30 percent of an average household's total greenhouse gas emissions and about the same proportion of total household energy use. Installing a solar water heater can greatly reduce your energy bills as it will use energy from the sun to heat water at zero cost.
Solar Hot Water Rebates
The upfront cost of a solar water heater (including installation) is higher than electric or gas water heaters but energy bill savings will compensate for this over time. Also there are widely available government rebates for solar hot water systems and incentives which can greatly reduce the cost of solar installation.
As of 1 January 2011, the enhanced Renewable Energy Target (RET) was split into two parts, the large-scale renewable energy target (LRET) and the small-scale renewable energy scheme (SRES). Visit http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/programs-and-rebates/solar-hot-water.aspx#recs for more info.
Or http://www.enviro-friendly.com/solar-hot-water-rebate.shtml
How solar hot water systems work
Most systems include solar collectors, a storage tank and a booster system. There are two types of solar collectors: flat plate and evacuated tubes. Durable and efficient, flat plate collectors are the most popular and comprise an airtight box with an absorbing plate that runs through it. The box is insulated to reduce heat loss. Evacuated tube collectors have outer glass tubes that allow the sun to enter and each tube has an inner water pipe that absorbs the sun's energy and heats the water. The vacuum acts as an insulator to reduce heat loss. Boosters can be gas or electric and are used for times where demand exceeds supply. Gas procues less GGE, so if available are definitely a better choice. Boosters can be manually or automatically controlled, so be careful when setting these to ensure you achieve the maximum solar contribution before the booster cuts in.
Installation
Another thing to consider before installing your solar hot water system is to make sure you have the right size tank and collectors for the number of people you need to service. Solar collectors should face north where possible and be installed at an angle similar to the latitude of the installation. Luckily, most Australilan roof pitches are 20 to 30 degrees, which allow the panels to be installed aesthetically with only minor winter losses of performance. The collector tanks can be either on the roof (where you will need an engineer to check that your roof can handle the weight), or the collector tank at ground level. Both these installations have the solar panels on the roof.
Connected PlumbGas can supply and install solar hot water systems in areas from Brisbane through to Noosa.
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