
A report has shown that the solar water heating is almost untapped and it could reduce a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions produced by households and would be a significant environmental measure. The greenhouse gas emission solar water heating that would reduce is equivalent to the emissions of 4 million cars, based on the report.The report used Govenment figures and was written for Soltrac, a West Country company, by Nick Radford, a former parlamentary researcher. He stated that the solar water heating could provide 60 to 70 percent of a household’s hot water needs and could help on two sides, by reducing both the costs by £232 a year and the carbon dioxide emissions by 665kg a year.
Unfortunately the technology isn’t currently used by many households, being only found on 0.004 percent of them, this meaning around 100,000. The tubes or panels cost from £2,500 to £4,000 and the Government grants £400 for this program, so the payback time will be of about 10 years.
Citing from the report: “In spite of good intentions and headline targets, the Government is failing to deliver a system that gives incentive to the domestic and commercial consumer to take one of the simple steps in going green. Instead the industry is being stifled by overbearing measures: the consumer is being disillusioned and the environment continues to bear the cost of unnecessary emissions.”
Basing on the Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, the energy produced from renewable sources has doubled in the last two years, reaching about 5 percent and by 2015 it should reach up to 15 percent.
via EcoGeek

March 18th, 2008 at 10:49 am
I think the government needs to pay the up-front cost of installing these. The homeowner would then pay a surcharge on their bill, representing the average difference between the old and new bill. This would continue until the installation cost was recovered, at which time the surcharge would be dropped.
No cost to the homeowner, and after about 10 years they get a nice reduction in their monthly bill, maybe just in time for their retirement.