How Solar Heating Works

Video Transcript

"So, how does solar heating work for home? Solar heating falls into two categories, there is a solar electric, that makes electricity and then powers a heat pump. But more commonly most people think of solar heating, they think of panels like these up here, the infrared light from the sun heats up the material neurons that transfer to the fluid or that hot air either one, and then that fluid or hot air heats the interior space or the swimming pool or the domestic hot water. And sometimes there is a storage involved, right, so that you can store that energy. 20 years ago they used to store it in hot rocks and that was a popular system 20 years ago. But today very few people do that. They run out of rocks? No, there's plenty of rocks. Alright, must be more efficient to do it with a tank, something insulated. What about a liquid like a vacuum tube solar heating? Is that more efficient or less efficient than like a PV solar with a heat pump? It's more efficient use of sunlight but it may not be financially more efficient and evacuated tubes are really coming on strong, so we're looking for them to be a growing technology and become better and better. The other thing that's a big deal is what part of the world you live in. If you're up in the northern hemisphere, there may be a solar benefit to a vacuum tube system in the winter time as opposed to PV solar which in the winter time because of the absent of the sun is not going to perform as well. So, that's another tip on solar heating."