Using Solar Panels for Water Heaters

Video Transcript

"What you see here is a solar water heater. So totally different to photovoltaic or to solar electricity. This one is just using the sun to heat up water. And when you look close, I opened it up for you that you can see what's going on there. In here is just a copper pipe. And down there, this is a copper pipe. And on the top there, you see another copper pipe. So now the sun is shining on this whole thing and down here the water is cool and it gets warm because all these metal plates take the heat from the sun and feed it into these pipes you see behind there. So when the water gets warm, it goes up and then it feeds in this main pipe up there and there you have hot water. Down there it's still cool, up there it's hot. And there the pipe comes out and this pipe runs into our water heater and is heating the water in the water heater for free. So this thing here is not really sophisticated. You can buy it today much better systems with a higher efficiency. This one is in the moment 30 years old and works for 30 years. And without any problems catches the sun. The water climbs up there and then runs by itself into the water heater because this one is about 1/2 a yard lower than the water heater is. So the warm water wants to climb up and it climbs by itself into the water heater and heats our water heater."