solar water heating

Solar water heating (or solar thermal) is an established and reliable technology with over 42,000 systems currently in use throughout the UK and twenty times this number in Germany.

Collectors are usually mounted on the south-facing roof of a building to optimise their energy yield. It’s important also that there is no shadowing from nearby buildings and trees, as this will reduce a systems performance significantly.

Solar water heating is technically not good at producing high temperature heat and so is not likely to contribute to large-scale industrial process heat requirements. What it can provide is small volumes of hot water for washing etc, or to pre-heat water that’s fed into other heat generating processes such as boilers. The types of business that can benefit from solar hot water systems include restaurants, leisure facilities, hospitals and hotels.

Costs will vary according to the choice of system and the size of system installed but typically installed costs (including solar store, controls etc) are between £400 - £800 per square meter of collector. Our site assessments will provide cost/benefit calculations for your organisation and buildings.