How Do Solar Panels Heat Water

The traditional hot water heater can be powered by the sun or combined with a solar thermal hot water system or with a tankless system.

How do solar panels heat water. In the simplest panels sun heats water flowing in a circuit through the collector the panel on your roof. In order to ensure a safe temperature at the taps a tempering valve will reduce the temperature to around 45 degrees. One of the most complex and often confusing areas of solar power in recent times has been the plethora of options available for heating water in any home. Where solar electric systems use the sun s energy to generate power for your home like your refrigerator or lights solar water heating systems pump hot water heated by the sun into your home.

One solar heater is sufficient for the entire house. Using solar hot water for space heating won t supply 100 percent of your heating needs. We know how easy it is to use solar power to do a lot of things including heating our water. As heat rises the hot water delivering to the tank from the solar collector comes from the top for use in the house.

This is then used to heat your water which is stored in a hot water cylinder. The sun s thermal energy heats the fluid in the solar collectors. Then this fluid passes through a heat exchanger in the storage tank transferring the heat to the water. Solar water heaters use the energy of the sun to give hot water.

You ll still need a supplemental heat source so you won t be able to scrap your furnace or boiler. Choosing a solar water heating system. An immersion heater unvented hot water cylinder might be needed as a back up heater or to get the water to the temperature you want. Solar panels or photovoltaic cell technology has come a long way in the last seven decades to produce enough electricity to power a home in the second decade of the 21st century.

Heating water using solar power is very affordable and can be installed with minimal effort. Solar thermal panels use heat from the sun to warm fluid passing through them as the diagram below shows. Solar thermal collectors directly turn the sun s energy into heat where it s collected and tranferred to a hot water tank in your home. The water leaving the collector is hotter than the water entering it and carries its heat toward your hot water tank.

The temperature of the water may exceed 60 degrees celsius a requirement to kill bacteria. Closed loop or indirect systems use a non freezing liquid to transfer heat from the sun to water in a storage tank. Solar water heating systems are different than solar electric systems. On average it can heat water up to 212 f though you won t require more than 130 f.

Here s a simple summary of how rooftop solar hot water panels work.