Solar Energy: Solar Water Heating Goes "Lite"
From Renewable Energy Access: Solar Water Heating Goes "Lite." Light Weight Solar Collector May Open Sluggish Market Press Release from SolarRoofs.com
Carmichael, CA (PRWEB) June 23, 2005 -- SolarRoofs.com announces the
introduction of a revolutionary advancement in solar water heating collectors.
It is a 19 pound collector that is the first truly lightweight and easy to ship
collector. It is delivered by low cost UPS or FedEx ground delivery services.
This attractive new product changes everything about how solar water heating has
been done in the past. It may well have the potential to finally open the mass
market for solar water heating.
The Los Angeles Air Quality Control
Management has stated, "next to car pooling, solar water heating is the most
cost-effective way to reduce air pollution." Each solar water heater installed
saves about as much energy as an economy car uses in a year.
With 4 to 5
times the energy density of solar photovoltaic (PV), solar water heating has
always produced the most solar power for the least cost. So why hasn't it caught
on? There are several reasons but the big one may be its weight.
For over
30 years, the traditional solar water heater has been a big and heavy affair. An
average 4 foot by 10 foot collector weighs in at over 150 pounds making it quite
a chore to get up on a roof and to install. Many solar dealers just found it too
much work to install solar water heaters. When energy prices rose, they
installed solar electric "PV" systems without much thought to its more powerful
cousin, the solar water heater.
SolarRoofs.com feels that with the much
higher power density of solar water heaters, there is no need to make them
bigger. The questions were asked: Why not make them a similar size to PV panels
so PV dealers are comfortable with them? Why not make them easier to install and
more attractive?
SolarRoofs.com thought the answer was in its 38 pound
"Fireball 20-01 collector. At 20 square feet, it is one half the size and about
one quarter the weight of a conventional collector. Being much easier to
install, it is a popular collector. However, with its 12 foot length, it still
needs to be shipped by costly freight. The 10-01 takes this concept one step
further and makes solar water heating collectors truly easy to handle and ship.
In addition, SolarRoofs.com is the only company to offer 27
architectural trim colors and a clean design that is much less obtrusive on the
roof. System integration, making the entire solar water heating system complete
and pre-assembled, is a SolarRoofs.com specialty. This further contributes to
the ease of installing solar water heating systems.
In the ever
increasingly competitive PV market, SolarRoofs.com sees its lightweight solar
products as a perfect complement to PV systems. It hopes that solar PV dealers
will see the Fireball collectors cost to energy advantage as a way to gain a
strong competitive advantage. It may soon happen that PV dealers will need to
offer solar water heating to remain competitive.
The Really Big
Picture
Solar Water heaters could reduce California's (and the Nation's)
energy consumption by over 2% and do enormous good for it's economy and
environment, now that's power.
A MACRO use of solar water heaters would
not only reduce energy demand and pollution, but millions of them installed to
supplement gas water heaters frees up large amounts of natural gas to be used to
create electricity.
When gas use is reduced, the gas thus displaced is
available to be used efficiently in gas turbines to produce electricity. Thus,
albeit indirectly, solar water heating can be used to create very significant
quantities of Electricity while cutting Pollution in half.
Solar Water
Heating is ideal when combined with Photovoltaic (PV) panels. One 40 square foot
solar system produces an average of 10kWh of energy per day, either by
displacing electricity or gas use.
Solar water heating is the perfect
complement to a Photovoltaic system because it can double, the energy output of
an average 1 to 4kW system at a fraction of the cost.
For more
information, please contact Al Rich at (916) 481-7200
url: http://www.solarroofs.com
http://www.re-access.com/rea/market/business/viewstory?id=32636
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/6/prweb254094.htm