solar energy water heating system part 1

When talking about solar water heating system, people usually come up with words like “expensive”, “slow”  or “low-efficiency”. However, if you install a solar energy water heating system with fuel system as backup, you will save lot of money in long run. According to the statistic based on average households of 2.6 occupants, U.S. Census in 2006. By adding solar water heating system, every household’s annual water heating bill will drop about 50% up to 80% on average and do not need to panic on fuel shortages any more. In the article called “Estimating the Cost and Energy Efficiency of a Solar Water Heater”, the author mentioned that “If you’re building a new home or refinancing, the economics are even more attractive”, if your fuel saving is more than 15$/month. The reason of it is that because there is a thing called “federal income tax deduction for mortgage interest attributable to the solar system” and it can reduce your cost on a solar water heater in a new 30-year mortgage, witch is usually between 13$ to 20$ per month, about 3$ to 5$ per month. Assuming you solar water heater cast you 13$ this month, you have a deduction of 3$ on it and you have saved 15$ of fuel, you will not only save the money, but also got profit about:

+15$ – 13$ + 3$ = +5$

energy_star_solar_water_heater

Estimating the Cost and Energy Efficiency of a Solar Water Heater

http://energy.gov/energysaver/articles/estimating-cost-and-energy-efficiency-solar-water-heater

 

  

5 thoughts on “solar energy water heating system part 1

  1. Sara Jamshidi

    A nice choice for a post! Solar water heaters can be quite effective, especially in places like the south. You have effectively shown that the government has made this incentive so good, home owners may actually make money doing it!

    It raises the question: why did the government incentivize this? Although the US government has a large budget, it has to make tough decisions regarding where and on what to spend money. This money could have, for example, gone to building a nuclear power plant, offsetting the price of bikes, investing in “carbon scrubbing research” or reducing the cost of public buses. What makes this a better investment for the US government than alternatives? This gets to the center of the ecological component of your post.

  2. John Roe

    It would be helpful to see an explicit payback calculation – though the financial aspect isn’t (or shouldn’t be) the only consideration, of course. You make an important point here (which also applies to solar PV): namely, that installing a solar system to cover most of the base load (with a conventional grid connection as backup) is, at present, much more realistic for most people than using solar to go completely “off the grid”.

  3. Gabriel Silverman

    I also did not know that the Federal Government incentivized solar water heating. I wonder if they made people more aware of that if it would be more popular. Also, I wonder how much the numbers would differ if the average number of people per household were closer to 4 than 2.6. Really cool though!

  4. Richard Jon Katzenback

    I never knew that the government incentivized the use of solar water heating. The fact that it could reduce the water heating bill by 50% is fantastic but I would like to know more about the cost of implementing the system and the overall returns on investment. Is it worth it to the average household to make the change to solar or as stated above is this meant more for large companies.

  5. seb5741

    You make some very good points! Are you suggesting, however, that we should use solar energy water heating? Or add backup fuel systems to existing solar water heating systems? Is it worth it for large companies to use this system?

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