Solar Cylinders
Solar powered hot water cylinders utilise specialised solar panels often installed on roofs of buildings, to assist with hot water heating demand. There are several cylinder companies that specialise in making unvented units that maximise the effectiveness or co-operate effectively with a solar panel set-up, with two main types of panels helping to define the major cylinder solutions available.
PV Ready Panels:
The more common method of supplying solar power to households or buildings is with PV-ready panels. What these do, is capture energy from light, and use this to store electricity like a battery. This electricity is then adapted and sent back to the household, often making it back to the energy grid for re-distribution. The total energy stored and held in this way would then provide electricity credit as such, meaning that households benefit from a net reduction of energy usage for the same amount of electrical demand. Systems like the PV Ready Megaflo Eco take this a step further, directly implementing the electricity within the water heating system as opposed to returning electricity directly to the grid.
Wet Solar Panels:
Wet solar panels are slightly less common, actually piping water through the solar panels so that the heat transfer from sunlight directly affects the water. Whilst this does not offer a great energy transfer (even on a hot day the water will not be heated to the level it can be directly used from the hot tap, the assistance does reduce the required kW draw and reduces heat-up times and energy demand.
