Solar Hot Water Panels

What is Solar Hot Panels?
Solar hot water panels are a means to harness the sun's energy in a unique way. Like traditional solar panels, solar hot water panels are placed in direct sunlight, oftentimes arrayed on rooftops, like in the photograph below:

How Solar hot water panels work

A solar hot water array, often referred to as a solar hot water heater, uses the energy from the sun to heat a fluid, which is in turn used to move heat generated in the array to a heat storage vessel. The process starts by heating a body of sanitized water and storing it in a hot water cylinder. Next, solar hot water panels would be installed on the rooftop, each with a darkly-coated absorber plate complete with water circulation tubes.

The tubes carry the heated water from the solar water heater to a place where it can be used or stored. A heat exchanger released heat and circulates the cooled water back to the solar hot water array to be reheated. This cycle of heating, energy utilization, and cooling is begun anew with each sunrise and lasts throughout the day for the effective life of the solar hot water heater. These arrays are especially useful for businesses that utilize large quantities of hot water, such as the pictured laundromat.

Solar hot water heaters are composed of a several hot water panel units, and can be fully automated systems.

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Passive Solar Energy

What is passive solar energy? The use of energy from the sun without the help of photovoltaics is reffered to as passive solar energy. Passive solar energy methods are a great way to make use of clean and inexaustible energy from the sun. Methods of passively collecting solar energy include solar ovens and well-planned indoor heating techniques.
Solar Ovens

Solar ovens are much like conventional ovens, and are ideal when the food to be prepared does not need to be prepared quickly or heated to extreme temperatures. Solar ovens are extremely-well insulated boxes, which can consist simply of a clean cardboard box surrounded by layers of insulation and aluminum wrapping. These solar ovens make use of solar energy in very hot and dry locales. Solar ovens require long periods of expose to the sun, and cook foods at lower temperatures and slower rates than convention ovens, but this method of passive solar power use is very inexpensive and has freed many from total dependence on energy from the power greed for their cooking needs.

Solar ovens are also a great passive solar energy source for those on long trips that who are exposed to lots of direct sunshine. The use of solar ovens is an appealing alternative to eating cold woods when on long trips where electricity is not available.
Passive Indoor Heating

Passive Indoor Heating is an excellent way to make use of passive solar energy and cut down on one's energy bills in the wintertime. Passive Indoor Heating requires careful planning in home construction and foresight in regard to the advantages of passive solar energy. During home contruction, with a careful eye to the positioning of windows, one can take advantage of the wintertime sun to provide optimal warmth by shining through the windows for the longest fraction of the day as possible. It is also possible to take advantage of passive solar energy techniques in an already-established home by trimming trees that block sunlight from entering your windows. Keeping the house well-insulated and the doors and windows sealed can make good use of the sun's warmth passively and reduce one's reliance on electricity from the city.
Trombe Walls

Trombe Walls make use of sunlight to heat homes and places of business using the energy of the sun. Read more about Trombe walls here.

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About Solar Panel

The solar revolution of the last two decades has made solar energy an increasingly powerful force in the energy arena.Solar Panels use arrays of solar photovoltaic cells to convert photons into usable electricity. With solar panels, we are provided with clean, renewable energy from the sun. Click below to navigate through our general solar panel information guide and read more about how solar panels work, how they are made, and how they will help with your energy efficiency.

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Solar Panel Installation Tips

Solar Panels are typically installed on rooftops, building tops, or stand-alone facilities. It is vital to install your solar panel so that it gets the most direct sun exposure - you want to make sure your solar panel is maximally effective year round. To do this, there are several web-based solar resources to help you properly set up and install your solar panels by tracking the position of the sun in the sky over the course of the year.
Position your solar panel in direct sunlight

Solar Panels perform at optimum capacity when placed in direct sunlight. Try to position your photovoltaic array directly under the noontime sun for maximum efficiency from your photovoltaic unit.
Notice obstructions to sunlight

Remove all items unnessary items or trim branches that may be blocking sunlight to your solar unit. Trace the path of the sun in the sky to determine if an object is casting a shadow over your solar photovoltaic panels. If this is the case, then the operating efficiency of your unit will undoubtedly suffer.
Mounting your Solar Panel

Solar Panel Mounts are used to install photovoltaic solar panels. Solar panel mounts come in three main varieties: pole mounts, roof-ground mounts, and flush mounts. Using these mounts, you can install your solar panel onto an RV, on top of or against the side of a pole, on your roof, or even install them as a free-standing unit. You can learn more about installing solar panels using mounts in our mounts section.

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Solar Panels For Your Home

Are you considering installing solar panels for your home or business? Solar panels can be a great investment that not only saves you money and increases the value of your property, but also helps the environment while it's helping your wallet and bank account.

Solar power is fast becoming price competitive with conventional energy sources, and in states like California, New Jersey, Arizona, Colorado, and more, there are great rebates and incentives in place to compensate you for the power you produce and help offset your initial investment cost. There are also an expanding number of solar financing options and in many cases you can get solar panels installed on your home and be cash flow positive on your investment within the first year!

As the solar industry has grown and matured over the last decade, the cost to put solar panels on your home have decreased significantly, dropping over 40% in just the last few years. There's never been a better time to make the move to solar for renewable clean energy for your home or business. The section below describes what you need to consider as to determine whether solar is the right choice for you.
Energy Efficiency of Your Home

Have you made the low cost, easy to implement changes that can reduce your energy bill before you replace your utility company with a clean, renewable solar panel system? Taking simple steps like switching to CFL light bulbs, energy star appliances, using smart power strips that turn off electronics when not in use, and making sure your windows, door, and insulation are keeping your energy inside can make a huge difference in your energy usage. It's called Demand Management. If you haven't made these changes yet, there are professionals who conduct an energy audit on your home, and can show you how to cut down your costs.
Your Home's Roof

Does your home have unobstructed south facing roof space? That's the ideal setting for solar panels, but often times an east-west roof with good exposure, or even a ground mounted system if you have an unobstructed area can work just as well. You'll just want to make sure there isn't any shading at any point of the day on the surface you intend to install solar panels on, because it can reduce the effectiveness of your system.

Solar Cost

Do you know how much installing solar panels for your home is likely to cost and what rebates and incentives are available? You can use the solar calculator on the right to find out what a system specific to your needs would cost you.
Free Home Solar Consultation

If you'd like a free consultation regarding solar energy, just fill out the quick information at the top of the page or call us at (866) 485-2757. Cooler Planet's solar team can help you decide if an investment in solar is right for you!

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Solar Panel Theory and construction

Solar panels use light energy (photons) from the sun to generate electricity through the photovoltaic effect. The structural (load carrying) member of a module can either be the top layer (superstrate) or the back layer (substrate). The majority of modules use wafer-based crystalline silicon cells or thin-film cells based on cadmium telluride or silicon. Crystalline silicon is a commonly used semiconductor.

In order to use the cells in practical applications, they must be:

* connected electrically to one another and to the rest of the system
* protected from mechanical damage during manufacture, transport, installation and use (in particular against hail impact, wind and snow loads). This is especially important for wafer-based silicon cells which are brittle.
* protected from moisture, which corrodes metal contacts and interconnections, and for thin-film cells the transparent conductive oxide layer, thus decreasing performance and lifetime.

Most solar panels are rigid, but semi-flexible ones are available, based on thin-film cells.

Electrical connections are made in series to achieve a desired output voltage and/or in parallel to provide a desired amount of current source capability.

Separate diodes may be needed to avoid reverse currents, in case of partial or total shading, and at night. The p-n junctions of mono-crystalline silicon cells may have adequate reverse current characteristics that these are not necessary. Reverse currents are not only inefficient as they represent power losses, but they can also lead to problematic heating of shaded cells. Solar cells become less efficient at higher temperatures and so it desirable to minimize heat in the panels. Very few modules incorporate any design features to decrease temperature, but installers try to provide good ventilation behind solar panels.[1]

Some recent solar panel designs include concentrators in which light is focused by lenses or mirrors onto an array of smaller cells. This enables the use of cells with a high cost per unit area (such as gallium arsenide) in a cost-effective way.

Depending on construction, photovoltaic panels can produce electricity from a range of frequencies of light, but usually cannot cover the entire solar range (specifically, ultraviolet, infrared and low or diffused light). Hence much of the incident sunlight energy is wasted by solar panels, and they can give far higher efficiencies if illuminated with monochromatic light. Therefore another design concept is to split the light into different wavelength ranges and direct the beams onto different cells tuned to those ranges.[2] This has been projected to be capable of raising efficiency by 50%. The use of infrared photovoltaic cells has also been proposed to increase efficiencies, and perhaps produce power at night.


Sunlight conversion rates (solar panel efficiencies) can vary from 5-18% in commercial production, typically lower than the efficiencies of their cells in isolation. Panels with conversion rates around 18% are in development incorporating innovations such as power generation on the front and back sides

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