Solar hot water heating has come a long way. Gone are the days when there is a big clunky thing on the roof, that does not work very well, and constantly needs maintenance.
A more effective solution is the use of photovoltaic solar panels to gather the sun’s energy in the form of light, convert this to electricity, and then store this energy in the geyser as hot water.
The solar heating is setup so that the water will reach upto 75 degrees Celsius. Storing energy in the form of hot water, turns the geyser itself into the battery.
It takes about 5.5kWh of energy to heat a 150lt geyser from 40 degrees to 70 degrees Celsius. This would completely drain a typical backup battery used on a modern solar hybrid inverter. If you convert your geyser to a solar geyser the geyser becomes the battery.
The geyser conversion process simply requires that the heating element in the geyser be replaced with an element that can heat the water from the sun or from the grid. A heating controller is installed that will monitor and maximize the heating efficiency.
The heating energy comes from solar panels, installed on the roof. Should there be days of very cloudy weather, the heating control will heat water to a minimum temperature using the utility power.
The geyser conversion can be done in a day. No plumbing, no mess, very low risk.
