A potential client today said that her husband had been dissuaded from going solar by two electrical engineers who told him that he wouldn’t save any money. Once I’d recovered from the shock, I realised that I actually had to respond to this misconception. Being an electrical engineer myself, I had to wonder how two of my colleagues could get it so wrong.
The reasoning that they used to persuade this person went as follows - you’ll drain your geyser by showering in the evening and will have to use electricity to reheat it for the morning. So unless you radically change your habits, for example by only showering once a day at a specific time, you won’t really see any savings.
I guess there is some small degree of truth to this. If you manage to drain your geyser of hot water every evening, you will have to use electricity to reheat it if you want hot water again first thing in the morning. The trick here is to install the right size of geyser so that you don’t end up draining it every evening. And the more information you can provide to your solar company about your water usage habits, the more likely it is that they will provide you with the right size geyser.
But even if you are draining the geyser every evening, and then again in the morning, at the very least you will be using solar to reheat the geyser during the day. So compared to before you had solar, when you had to use electricity to heat water day and night, at least now you’re only using electricity at night. You can’t tell me that’s not a saving!
And perhaps it is also true that some kind of behaviour change is called for. If you were draining a full geyser every evening and then using hot water again in the morning, it might be time to think about the amount of energy you’re using. We see installing a solar geyser as a positive in this respect – it often gets families thinking more carefully about the energy they’re using and monitoring it more closely.
Finally, I have to bring in the example of clients we have who now switch off their geysers for approximately eight months of the year. Of course, they can do this because their solar systems are correctly sized. Still, you can’t tell me that they’re not saving a heap of money during those eight months!
Comments welcome – perhaps there’s something I’m missing?
Ed.
Solar Science is a supplier and installer of solar water heating systems to the greater Cape Town area. Get in touch if you’re interested in a free quote.
I think our solar panels have thus far provided ineffectual. We are a family of 5. My wife and kids bath/shower at night and I shower in the morning. I find I have to turn on the Geyser Wise to maintain a steady flow of hot water at night. After my shower there is no hot water left so again I need to turn on the Geyser Wise just to washup the morning dishes. Seems a bit extreme to me. Further when we have ,until recetly, been paying R600-00 for electricity per month we are now up to R800-00 pm. Something is wrong somewhere. May not only be the geyser but seems to me it is a part of it.
Regards
Chris
Hey Chris,
Thanks for the comment – can you let me know the size of your geyser(s)? At this time of year, with a correctly sized solar geyser, you should be able to generate all of your hot water without electricity.
Regards,
Richard
We are considering installing a solar geyser at a cost of about R18 000. So the comment at the top of at least having free hot water at night, is not really true – for many years you are just getting your installation cost covered. Our total electricity bill is about R350 per month – so at a suggested 70% of you electricity bill to be saved on installing solar, it will take about 6 years to pay off the installation. And then there’s also only a 5-7 year garantee on the solar system – depending on which you choose. So I’m getting more and more convinced it’s not such a good idea to install the system.
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