Solar air heaters can be incredibly energy efficient and can reduce your heating costs by as much as 70 percent. Besides their energy efficiency, they are also extremely durable and can last upwards of 20 years.
Solar space heaters can also warm up small areas, like a camping tent or greenhouse. In these cases, though, it's really a combination of two products — a solar power source and a traditional electric heater — working together to do the job.
If you're considering installing a solar hot water system, you're probably wondering – will my solar hot water work during winter? In short: yes. Even if you live in an area where you temperatures drop below zero, solar hot water systems are built to accommodate harsh winter conditions.
Heating your home with an active solar energy system can significantly reduce your fuel bills in the winter. A solar heating system will also reduce the amount of air pollution and greenhouse gases that result from your use of fossil fuels for heating or generating the electricity.
Solar systems designed to provide central heating aim to replace 40 to 80 percent of conventional heating. They're most cost effective when providing 50 percent of the home's heat [source: NC Solar Center, U.S. Department of Energy].
The solar water heaters can heat water up to 200 degrees on particularly sunny days. The pipes of the solar hot water system can absorb heat even when the sun isn't shining on it directly, which enables it to produce hot water on cloudy days as well.
How Many Solar Panels Does It Need to Run a Heater? On the average house, you will need to install three standard-size solar panels to power a heater that consumes 1500-watts of energy per hour.
Generally, the power range of space heaters is from 1000 watts to 1500 watts. Assuming you have a 1500-watt space heater, you will need a solar generator with an output power of at least 2000 watts to ensure it can power the space heater and other necessary appliances that need to be powered simultaneously.
The short answer is yes, but there are several considerations you need to make. The first is whether your solar generator has enough output capacity to run your space heater. Space heaters require a lot of energy to keep running, and you need the right-sized solar generator to operate one.
Passive Solar Water Heating Systems
These work best in areas where temperatures rarely fall below freezing. They also work well in households with significant daytime and evening hot-water needs. Water is heated in a collector on the roof and then flows through the plumbing system when a hot water faucet is opened.
Do you have a sunny place to put solar panels? Solar hot water collectors are typically placed on South facing roof, or somewhere between East to West (but not North facing). You will need around five square meters that receive direct sunlight for the main part of the day. The panels don't have to be mounted on a roof.
While it is true that both solar and electrical water heaters have their own set of advantages and disadvantages, solar water heaters are more efficient and beneficial. They require minimum maintenance, which makes them an excellent long-term investment.
One of three types of solar collectors can be selected for solar water-heating systems: flat-plate, evacuated-tube, and parabolic collectors. Flat-plate collectors. A flat-plate collector is basically a panel-shaped box containing fluid- filled tubes mounted on a dark-colored absorber.
Active Solar Water Heaters
These systems are typically placed on the roof or wherever direct sunlight is available before being pumped into the home. Indirect circulation systems utilize pumps to circulate a heat-transfer fluid that does not freeze through the collectors and a heat exchanger.
In this case, as you can see in the following image, with one 12 Volt battery, you can run a 1500 Watt space heater for 0.4 hours or 24 minutes. By adding three more batteries to this setup, you can run a 1500 Watt heater for approximately 1.4 hours or 84 minutes.
For a 1500-watt electric furnace, you will need at least 1500 watts of solar panels or 5 x 300-watt solar panels.
Combustion heaters are indoor heaters that don't require electricity, utilizing propane instead of electricity. If you need heat without electricity or gas, kerosene radiant heaters should have everything you need. Keep in mind that these no-electricity heaters need plenty of kerosene to keep working.
Solar space heating is one of the more intuitive use of solar thermal energy by using the sun's heat to subsequently heat spaces within buildings. The technologies within space heating can be separated into two distinct categories: passive and active.
1500 watts will heat spaces up to about 150 square feet and can help you stay warm and toasty in a medium-sized room, office, kitchen, or modest-sized living room.
As a rule of thumb, you will need 10 watts of heating power for every square foot of floor area in a room. This means that a 1,500-watt heater can be the primary heat source for an area measuring up to 150 square feet. If it's used as a supplemental heating source, however, it covers a much larger area.
A standard flat-plate collector can provide about 700-1000 Btu per square foot per day, but colder locations will tend to the 700-800 end of that range on a cold, clear day in the heating season.