Evacuated tube technology was first developed in Australia at the University of Sydney — some 40 years ago.
More recent developments have improved their technical efficiency and they are now rapidly invading the solar hot water market worldwide as Chinese manufacturers have managed to bring down the manufacturing costs to very competitive levels.
So now, at long last, we have a state-of-the-art solar hot water system that is very affordable. They have also stood the test of time, systems installed 40 years ago are still going without maintenance.
Continue reading →
Absolutely. Tasmania has the same latitude as northern Italy and well within the latitude band in which solar energy gain is viable and profitable.
Solar hot water systems are in widespread use in much less favourable climatic conditions — such as Northern Europe and Alaska.
The development of the evacuated tube solar technology has enabled solar hot water to become even far more financially attractive in cooler climates such as ours.
By way of example — a 270litre cylinder of water heated to 65°C will hold around 14.3 kwh of energy storage. (This is equivalent to running a 1 kilowatt heater for 14.3 hours.)
The Apricus system will boost the cylinder temperature to 80°C, so a fully charged hot water cylinder will give you ample heat capacity for a typical home.