Do Solar Heating Systems Really Help Protect the Environment & Wallet

mic calculations and a comparison of CO2 show thatand a conventional electricity tariff without closing
solar heaters are the latest generation future-prooftimes and an eco-power tariff.
solutions in the marketplace. There are many solarSolar heating has the lowest CO2 emissions
heating systems but when it is worth the investmentIn addition to the total annual cost of the heating
and which system protects the environment the most?systems a comparison of CO2 emissions was made.
In a recent comparison test five heaters wereAs a basis, the CO2 equivalent of 4.5 GEMIS study
compared:were used and compared.
In the test we compared gas heater and solar heatingAccording to many renewable heat can be obtained
system combination, a oil heater combined with a solarthrough the specially designed hybrid collectors directly
heating system, a borehole heat pump combined withfrom the sun and from the surrounding air. This saves
a solar heating system, a solar air heat pump and aSOLAERA more than 60 percent compared to an oil
solar heating system consisting of solar panels and aheating without solar heating and 35 percent
hybrid energy storage system.compared to gas heating and air heat pumps, each in
The result: Initial results showed that Solar Heatingcombination with a solar thermal system. Borehole
SOLAERA provided significant cost advantages overheat pumps with solar panels have a 20 percent
solar-assisted oil and gas heating and heat pumpgreater CO2 emissions than SOLAERA.
heating systems on the ground probes. An oil heatingSolar heating with the greatest energy savings
system with solar per year is 36 percent moreThe solar heating of SOLAERA Consolar is the only
expensive than the solar heating SOLAERA.system that exceeds a primary energy saving of 50
When looking into the different options we considerpercent. This shows that it is conventionally supported
the investment costs of equipment, interest, installations,by a solar heating and is not - supported as in other
material, maintenance, fuel / electricity price increasessystems - to a conventional solar heating. For this
and promotions as part of a full cost accounting forpioneering step, by the German Federal Environmental
over 20 years. The investment costs were takenFoundation Solar Heating SOLAERA supported with
including a study by the Economic Affairs ofseveral innovation prizes awarded including the OTTI
Baden-Württemberg as well as a recent surveyInnovation Award and the Swiss energissima Award.
by the Consumer Rheinland-Pfalz.SOLAERA will enable the full heat of a single-or
The timings for the heating efficiency are based onmulti-family house in the old or new, without gas, oil,
independent test results of the Stiftung Warentest, theheat pump or air-ground probes evaporator in the
heat pump field test study of Agenda 21 group Lahrgarden. This is made possible by newly developed
and the ITW, Universität Stuttgart. The simulationhybrid panels, which are the only source of heat the
results were verified in a Consolar and the ITWhouse, and integrated into the system combination of
supervised promotion. For SOLAERA came threeheat pump and latent. The system is compact and is
electricity rates in the comparison: the conventionalconveniently located in the basement of the building
heat pumps with electricity tariff curfew, which wasspace.
scheduled for the air and ground probes heat pump,