Putting cost considerations aside for a minute.
Excess solar power to heat water.
One solar panel would be enough to power a traditional storage hot water heater throughout a day as this is the most inefficient appliance used in most homes.
Every unit of power used to heat the hot water in this way reduces imported energy by the same amount resulting in a significant saving in imported energy costs.
Iboost features and benefits.
Eddi is a solar power diverter for use with grid tied pv or wind turbine systems.
Image via rheem australia 2.
Payback on this size of system is typically 5 to 7 years.
It is wireless so there are no cables to run.
This increases to over 120 if you use oil or lpg to heat your water.
Most solar power households feed excess electricity back into the grid for very little financial reward.
I understand we could fit a hot water tank with an electrical element at the base to use the excess solar generated electricity via an intelligent switch.
Flat rate time of use tou either of these can be used to power a hot water element in conjunction with solar hot water solar pv and possibly a controlled load tariff see below.
It makes financial sense to use that extra power generated by your pv to heat water rather than exporting to the grid as buying electricity and gas from the grid for heating water remains expensive.
Excess energy from the micro generation system is used to heat water or rooms rather than exporting it to the grid.
Example of a tankless water heater by rheem.
A hot water heat pump could put that power to better use by heating water for evening use.
Type of electricity tariff.
The aws tm sunmate is an innovative renewable energy management product that will use all the surplus power generated by your solar or wind power to produce hot water.
If however you ran all your hot water off your excess solar power worth 8c if you exported it you could save 12 3c kwh or 448 year.
Set the timer to run when your solar is running.
A second option to explore is the use of a dedicated solar thermal hot water heating system coupled with a heat pump to make the most cost effective option on the market.
Two methods of using solar electricity to produce hot water.
In australia there are two primary types of electricity tariffs.
We recommend the solar iboost to provide hot water via excess pv electricity.
Install a load shift timer.