PV water heater?

 ALL;

  Where's the best places to find out information on a PV home hot water
heater? And where can I find out about PV hot water tanks?

  Thanks.

  Hi Joseph;


 > Where's the best places to find out information on a
 > PV home hot water heater?
 > And where can I find out about PV hot water tanks?

Of course one can make a low voltage PV powered
electric water heater.

However, it is an insanely bad idea.

Good PV panels are about 15% efficient or so.
But conventional solar water heaters are 50% to 60%
efficient or more.
So the cost to produce the same amount of hot water
using PV requires 4 or more times the collector area
of that of a conventional solar water heater.

The PV electric water heater will cost many times
more than a conventional solar water heater.

The only possible reason to heat water would be if
the system batteries are fully charged and you may
want to dump the PV power somewhere.

 > Thanks.

Duane

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 Joseph M. Spreng wrote:

Remember PV stands for PhotoVoltaic, ie make electrity.

PV panel are quite expensive and their efficiency is fairly low.

  On the other hand, thermal panels are relatively cheap and far more
efficient. Going from solar to electricity to heat is an unneeded
expensive step unless you already have electrity to burn.

   Tere's two main thoughts these days towards domestic hot water. One
is flat panel collectors with either a copper or aluminum sheet. A
series  of tubes conducts the heat away. The other is evacuated tubes
connected in a manifold. More efficient in cold climates, but far more
expensive.


Try alt.solar.thermal

   Jeff

 

Are you talking about using an solar powered pump to run water through a
collector to heat water and then dump it back in a tank? Otherwise, using
electricity to heat water is very inefficient using PV cells.



--

Charles
The significant problems we face cannot be solved
at the same level of thinking we were at when we
created them.  Albert Einstein