This last Monday morning we decided to take the SolPal Solar Thermal System (Solar Hot Water) out for a spin to see how it's working. The system pre-heats water going into a conventional natural gas-fired water heater so that it uses less fuel to heat water. At the temperature shown, the water should not need any auxiliary gas-fired heating at all (unless there are heat losses through the tank itself in standby mode... and that is typically sufficiently supplied by the heat from the pilot light anyway.)
The SolPal is relatively new to the market, and is a fairly low-cost system. The materials for the premium model we used were only $1500, and with a rough installation cost of $1500 that comes to a total of around $3000 for a full system. This is very reasonable for Solar Thermal. Because of it's low cost, we were curious as to its effectiveness, and judging by the temperature of the water coming out so early in the morning we would say it is working VERY well.
The system can be retrofitted to existing water heating, as well of course in new construction. For builders, the new construction application should be of great interest for one particular reason: Solar Thermal provides a big boost to the Title-24 Energy Calculations. With our energy code getting tighter and tighter, it's getting harder to design a home with all the glazing that us Californians expect in our homes. So, for a cost of $3000, architects may not have to take windows out of their designs in order to meet the energy code. Ta da!
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