When we first started exploring Cleantech for our own houses there was clearly one technology that seemed to be the most widely available – Solar Thermal.
Strangely, most column inches seem to be devoted to wind power – could this be due to the powerful lobby, often existing big energy companies who are investing in wind in order to ‘green-up’ their operations, pushing the case for wind in the media?
Yes, probably. But as you will find elsewhere on this website, wind has some pretty severe limitations for it to have widespread application in the domestic context.
So, back to Solar Thermal. There are a number of reasons why Solar Thermal is attractive over other Cleantech options, if only in terms of the best place to start (after properly insulating your home, that is!)
- Heating hot water for your home is pretty inefficient. More so than central heating, as it requires a ‘burst’ of energy use to heat the water up for use, whereas the energy used to ‘fire-up the central heating is then utilized over a longer period. By pre-heating your hot water using the sun, much less energy has to be used.
- Solar water heating is proven and reliable. In fact, it has been refined over more than 30 years and is unlikely to improve much further. Most systems last easily longer than the average mortgage, meaning your investment in free hot water just goes on and on.
- The return on investment (ROI) is better than any other option. This is mainly because the upfront capital cost is so low. Looking at it from a payback perspective most systems cover their costs on installation in 4-7 years. We should point out that we think that is the wrong way to look at the investment anyway. For example, you may decide to convert your loft in order to provide some home office space or a playroom for the kids. You know that it will increase the value of your property. Investing in any Cleantech solution will do the same but crucially it will continue to reduce your costs for years to come. We believe that the UK Government will soon make this argument even more compelling by linking the installation of Solar Thermal to the property and not the individual under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) due to be launched in 2010. We understand that new incentives will also be retroactive meaning that the benefit will apply even to installations already in place.
- Most houses have a suitable location to install Solar Water Heating. Ideally the collectors should be sited within 90° of South, however with evacuated tubes, even North facing locations can generate significant, if not optimal, performance. Even if you only have a North facing roof, panels can still be mounted on an A-Frame either in the garden or on a flat roof (such as a garage for example).
- There is minimum disruption to install Solar Thermal. Unlike some other Cleantech solutions, Solar Thermal can be installed in 2 to 3 days with a minimum of disruption. Our fully certified installers will put the collectors (panels or tubes) on your roof on Day 1, whilst our plumber installs the solar cylinder in place of your existing cylinder usually in the airing cupboard. Once in place the cylinder and collectors are connected via the pump a regulator and an expansion chamber. On Day to the system is checked for to ensure it is at the correct pressure and there are no leaks. It is left to run for a few hours in order to test correct function. Once this has been established the installers take photographs to show the correct set up and you are give a customer satisfaction form to ‘sign-off’ on the job. In some cases (large or more complex installations) work may go over in to a third day. The installation and equipment are fully covered by warranties and guarantees, and of course we will remedy any issues that occur as quickly as we possibly can (although they are very rare.)
Of course, Solar PV has really stolen the limelight from Solar Thermal in the last year, mainly due to the FIT’s introduced in April 2010. Whilst we believe PV is a great technology, we don’t see it excluding Solar Thermal, just an additional option.