The Solar PV panel that provides electricity AND heat for your home!

Solar photovoltaic panels provide electricity for homes, businesses and utility scale grid providers. Ironically though, the hotter they get in direct sunshine, the less effective they are at producing power. So, what if we could harvest the heat, remove it from the panel, and do something useful with it? 'Killing two birds with one stone', if you like. Well...it looks like we've just worked out how to do exactly that.

Link to Rosie's video

Link to Sunovate Website

Camel Solar Video Reference at 7'41" :
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Our Changing Climate :

[davidgeorge]

Sunday is back to normal. Thank you for another 'Think'.

[erfquake]

You know, back when I was a kid, a friend's dad built a solar water heater made of simple copper tubing, a plexi box, and an unplugged, junky water heater tank just for storage. The hot water that came out of that thing was ferocious. Now when I look at rooftop solar panels (1:58 for example) with those awkward, unsightly gaps around corners & chimneys, I think those would be perfect for H2O water heating panels. They could be cheap, custom-built to be any shape, and could fill in those gaps perfectly: perfect follow-on cottage industry.

[minutestomidnight]

The PVT using air-cooling is truly a brilliant innovation; it's not just highly effective but is a relatively simple retrofit to solar cells, providing tons of uses for waste heat. Even in domestic use, these look to have great potential for just energy savings alone, but on an industrial scale, it could provide a huge source of waste heat that could be used for industrial processes and large-scale heating.

[homegrown]

Here in Holland (or the Netherlands🙄) this technic is already booming. I myself got the SolarFreezer system. PVT on the roof and a reservoir in my crawlspace. Floorheating is a must have. And a NIBE heatpump. I have it running since December 1st. Used 215 kWh in December COP of 5, 6. I'm monitoring my usage over the year but I'm using far less energy than from my residual heat from nearby industries contract, offered via a local network throughout the neighborhood. I'm glad I did the research and found the PVT system and even more about its performance.

[tonydeveyra]

i've been thinking about this tech a lot recently. the combination of PVT and agrivoltaics could make for some amazing passively heated and cooled horticultural structures for specialty crops.

[georgepelton]

Came here from Rosie's channel. PVT with air as the thermal medium seems like a promising technology.

[dienekes]

I thought about this several years ago. It's good to know that adding a liquid cooling system isn't very effective, I hadn't thought of that disadvantage, but it's great to know that there are companies working on this solution. One thing I've been thinking about recently is how to get hot air for drying clothes. I think this would actually be an awesome use for this technology. A few years ago, I saw a YouTube channel (Missouri Solar and Wind) where he sealed off a dryer and ducted it to pull air from the attic so that it used a lot hotter air than the ambient temperature in the house with the added benefit of not using the cooler air in the house when A/C was running. I highly recommend that channel for DIYers.

[ronkirk]

What a great way to improve the efficiency of PV solar AND it doesn't even require improving the sunlight/electrical conversion efficiency of the cells themselves. Using air to transfer the heat away from the panels also makes for a simpler system than trying to use a liquid. I like the idea of ducting the heat down to a shed type greenhouse attached to my house.

[waynethomas]

I added copper plate with with pipes to the back of my solar pv panels 10 years ago, pumping heated water underground into thermal sink for winter house heating and water heating. works wonders(Western Australia)

[sebydocky]

Excellent video as usual. You have also since several years the french "Dualsun" compagny hybriding on the same panel PV & (water) thermal circuit...

[climateteacherjohnj]

Good job! Thanks for doing due diligence on your research and for presenting such even-handed appraisals on an often over-complicated subject.

[markumbers]

As soon as you started I thought about the way Tesla scrounges heat for battery management and passenger warmth. Makes a lot of sense.

[evadd]

A massive thanks once again for helping me teach my students about tech futures. Their lives will need it. And giving them positive thing to look for as well as providing clues to my own future home.

[peadarwalsh]

As usual a very comprehensive overview of the subject.
Ive been wondering for years why pv panels could be used for heat as well as electricity, delighted to see its now coming to a stage where it can be used in a domestic situation

[neilwavg]

Thanks for this, I am optimistic for the future because of you!

[saumyacow]

As an Engineer (living in temperate Australia where typical daytime maximums go from 10C in winter to 40C in summer) I've actually worked on this exact problem. And at least on the domestic level, its a very hard problem. You end up needing to convince people to spend a fair bit of money on some form of heat store. Or having some other tradeoff.

Also, the air box setup you see on this video is great in a colder climate. But in a climate like here its just a heat removal system for the solar panels. And its cheaper to simply buy more panels to compensate for inefficiencies than it is to retrofit this type of system (designed in from manufacture is a different thing).

Without giving too much away I can say two things. Firstly, pure water is sufficiently non conductive. Secondly, you don't have to resort to complex plumbing and joints in order to create a solar panel sized heat exchanger - you can make it out of two pieces of aluminium. You can even make it in a form that creates the entire frame for an OEM panel. The key to not having too much of a thermal gradient across the panel is simply flow.

Btw in a real system you will need a heat pump and a heat exchanger to reject heat to the air. (Nice if you could store heat for winter but again its a small swimming pool sized structure). One nice thing is that you can actually keep the panels quite cool by using the heat pump - not just passive cooling. That again adds to efficiency and life.

[nicennice]

Always come away from these videos learning something new and being inspired Dave. Excellent stuff.

[dogdooish]

I dreamed about trapping the heat 40 years ago, but was too busy working for paupers wages to try to innovate the system! I'm so glad someone has finally had the same idea and put it into operation! :)

[brettgipson]

*Super compact and easy to carry and travel with accessories for the electric **Generater.Systems** .I was worried this was going to be bulky or hard to use.Hooks up easy and charges quickly*

[NirvanaFan]

Very cool concept. I've long thought that "waste heat" was a wasted opportunity. Been seeing some good progress on heat recovery and heat-to-electricity conversion. Really excited to see where it goes. Love synergistic systems.