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Doing the Math on Solar Water Heaters ($8K investment with savings of $55 on $100 annual gas bill)
American Thinker ^ | 06/25/2012 | Peter Wilson

Posted on 06/26/2012 7:26:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) claims that "solar hot water systems are great because they provide an easy and low cost way to create hot water in a clean and sustainable way."

On the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star website, we read:

"While the initial purchase price of solar water heaters is high compared to standard models, they can be cost effective. That is because the sun's energy is harnessed to reduce operating costs up to 90 percent."

To overcome this "initial purchase price" obstacle, government grants are needed so all these wonderful cost savings can be realized. To this end, a myriad of tax credits and rebate programs has been created in federal, state, and local governments. The Department of Energy has assembled a few of these programs in its Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE). Picking at random from a page-long list for Massachusetts, we find the Commonwealth Solar Hot Water Residential Program, which gave out grants of up to $3,500, or 25% of the installation cost over the last year and a half, with $1 million budgeted for residential and $1 million for commercial locations. The Commonwealth Solar II Rebates program offers a $4,250 rebate for residential photovoltaic installation.

A recent e-mail from a municipal agency called the Cambridge Energy Alliance (CEA), not listed with DSIRE, in association with the MassCEC, offered rebates of up to $2,000 to install a solar water heater (SWH) on my roof. I spent the afternoon crunching a few numbers and concluded, as suspected, that solar hot water systems are not "cost effective" and do not "provide an easy and low cost way to create hot water." The calculations are simple, but the relevant data is often obscured, as we shall see.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: energy; gas; solar
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1 posted on 06/26/2012 7:26:26 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
I heat my pool with solar. It's toasty warm!

2 posted on 06/26/2012 7:36:57 AM PDT by TSgt (The only reason I have one in the chamber at all times, is because it is impossible to have two in.)
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To: SeekAndFind
145 year pay-out . . . LOL!!! Just another example of liberal "thinking."

Hey, at least your grand kids will have "free" hot water . . . of course, after 145 years, some parts MAY need to be replaced. LOL!!!
3 posted on 06/26/2012 7:36:57 AM PDT by Sudetenland (Member of the BBB Club - Bye-Bye-Barry!!! President Barack "Down Low" Obama)
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To: SeekAndFind

$8k???

That seems about double what they are down here in Florida.


4 posted on 06/26/2012 7:39:24 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: TSgt

it’s not hard to warn a pool to bath water temps in the summer using the sun.

Now. try to warm water that comes in to the heating system at 30-45 degrees constantly while taking a shower. In the winter in the north east.


5 posted on 06/26/2012 7:40:30 AM PDT by cableguymn (If your policies are pushing the economy in to headwinds.. TURN YOUR POLICY AROUND!)
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To: driftdiver

And a $100 annual gas bill (even for just the hot water portion) seems very low.


6 posted on 06/26/2012 7:40:59 AM PDT by Flightdeck (If you hear me yell "Eject, Eject, Eject!" the last two will be echos...)
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To: driftdiver

in the NE they probably have to be about twice as large to over come out side temperature in the winter.


7 posted on 06/26/2012 7:41:37 AM PDT by cableguymn (If your policies are pushing the economy in to headwinds.. TURN YOUR POLICY AROUND!)
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To: SeekAndFind
The beauty of "sustainability" to the ruling elite is that it is unsustainable.

These people are, first and foremost, misanthropes. They hate all people who are not them. They want them all to die so they can live in the Walden paradise that they believe they deserve.

Their only purpose is to overwhelm the system, to destroy everything that actually works, and replace those things with things that are outrageously expensive and inefficient so that all those smelly, stupid human beings who aren't them are driven into abject poverty and eventually starve.

None of their "sustainability" schemes are intended to work. Quite the opposite. It's really no more complicated than that.

8 posted on 06/26/2012 7:43:25 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Government is the religion of the sociopath.)
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To: cableguymn

We have the opposite problem here in Central Texas.

We used to have a large in-ground swimming pool that we could only use in the fall and spring. In July and August, when it is over 100 degrees most days, the pool felt like a hot tub. We tried tossing several 50 pound blocks of ice in it, but the pool was too large for the ice to have any measurable effect.


9 posted on 06/26/2012 7:47:59 AM PDT by Bubba_Leroy (The Obamanation Continues)
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To: Flightdeck

I had a solar heater for my pool. Electric or gas heaters generally cost $300-400 per month just for a swimming pool.


10 posted on 06/26/2012 7:51:12 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Hot water and showers are possibly a political problem for some ~ Occupy Wallstreet comes to mind of course.

Now, about the soap.....

11 posted on 06/26/2012 7:59:53 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: driftdiver

I am an engineer.
Three years ago I attended a week long training event on solar water heaters (for heating hot water for your house.) This was at the Midwest Renewable Energy Association. They showed a cost/benefit graph that showed a family of four would pay off their investment in 10 years. (Of course you needed a $2,500 federal tax credit and a $2,500 Wisconsin tax credit to make the numbers add up.) And did I fail to mention that to payback in 10 years also required no maintenance costs. Even though everything was only warrantied for five years and the water/antifreeze solution should be replaced every five years.


12 posted on 06/26/2012 8:02:05 AM PDT by american_ranger
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To: Bubba_Leroy

Playing human lobster aint no fun. Give me a coldwater creek any day!


13 posted on 06/26/2012 8:04:39 AM PDT by rawcatslyentist ("Behold, I am against you, O arrogant one," Jeremiah 50:31)
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To: muawiyah

It’s not about the hot water. It’s about throwing the $8000 down a rathole so you don’t have it to spend on something else. Or better yet, a government program that spends the money for you and explodes the deficit even more.


14 posted on 06/26/2012 8:05:46 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Government is the religion of the sociopath.)
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To: driftdiver

I drained my pool and painted the bottom black. It absorbed and retained heat very well and reduced the heating cost considerably. There were a couple of hot months in July and August when it got a bit warm, but it was offset by comfortable water temp in cooler months like Feb, March, April and October, November.


15 posted on 06/26/2012 8:10:24 AM PDT by Baynative (REMEMBER: Without America there is no free world!)
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To: american_ranger

Solar has its uses. Its not the right answer for every situation though.


16 posted on 06/26/2012 8:10:58 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: Baynative

I tried painting the water black but had problems getting it to dry.


17 posted on 06/26/2012 8:13:50 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I can see you haven’t been near an OWS encampment. Believe me it’s all about the hot water AND the soap. They don’t use it!


18 posted on 06/26/2012 8:16:25 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Your reply nailed evil bs pushed by the sustainable anti human freaks.

About 6 years ago, I had a heated discussion with an evil freaking lesbo sustainable bser.

She was basically saying that we should never eat anything that we didn’t grow or raise or what came from our farmers and ranches our county.

At that time we had about a dozen farmers and ranchers who raised enough stuff to sell in the county of over 125,000 legals citizens plus at least 10% more of illegals.

I asked her how those dozen farmers could raise the food to feed all of us.

After she went ballistic, I said, “Be careful of what you wish for, because our side owns the guns which we would use to feed our families!”

When one of these evil sustainable freaks start their bs, I stop them and tell them about the number of farmers/ranchers we have and how maybe they could feed 5% of the population. So who are they going to kill to make our county sustainable, the people without guns.


19 posted on 06/26/2012 8:18:21 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS DESTROYING AMERICA-LOOK AT WHAT IT DID TO THE WHITE HOUSE!)
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To: SeekAndFind
"To overcome this "initial purchase price" obstacle, government grants are needed so all these wonderful cost savings can be realized"

======================================================

I fixed this to be accurate:

To overcome this "initial purchase price" obstacle, money stolen from taxpayers is needed so all these wonderful cost savings can be realized

20 posted on 06/26/2012 8:21:09 AM PDT by Wurlitzer (Nothing says "ignorance" like Islam!)
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