Cyprus has outstripped all other EU member states in embracing hot-water solar systems, with an estimated 93.5 % of households exploiting the alternative energy form for domestic needs.
The solar thermal systems not only collected solar energy as heat – usually generated through electricity and the burning of fossil fuels – they were extremely cost-effective and had helped spawn an entire industry, he explains.
“It’s been great for low-income families and then there’s the jobs: so many have been generated,” the MP says. “There are the local manufacturers who produce the parts and then all the people who are trained to install them. It’s big business.”
In his role as environment commissioner, Theopemptou pushed hard to make the solar systems obligatory on all newly constructed residential and commercial buildings – a move instituted by Israel back in the 1970s.
I see these things all over Latin America and stayed at a bunch of places that have them. It can get SUPER hot. The cool thing about them is that the pipes that heat the water are vacuum sealed and don’t heat the water directly. I forget the exact mechanics of it, but it pretty much doesn’t matter what the temperature is. It can take that solar energy and add it to water.
I think they heat a refrigerant and then use a heat exchanger to transfer that heat to the water.
I would love to see numbers on how they compare against solar panels+ air source heat pump. I guess the solar heater is cheaper, but I would guess photovoltaic+heat pump probably is more efficient all around and it useful for all your home, not just water.
Decades ago, there was a small, local company named Copper Cricket in Oregon that sold and installed rooftop solar water heaters which worked really well - despite the fact that the Willamette Valley, where most of the population lives, got something like only 3 months worth of cloudless days peer year (July, the month with the fewest cloudy days, has an average 40% cloud cover during the month).
This is pre-internet history, and I’m unable to find references, but when the company went out of business the rumor going around was that power companies were funding zoning lawsuits against Copper Cricket, and this eventually shut the company down.
This is pre-internet history, and I’m unable to find references, but when the company went out of business the rumor going around was that power companies were funding zoning lawsuits against Copper Cricket, and this eventually shut the company down.
sounds very plausible–zoning is awful and a perfect place to do concern trolling bullshit like that if you know your way around what’s allowed and what’s not.
