It’s about time: Regulations come into effect in April 2013 and make solar water heaters obligatory for every new residence (including apartments) sized 150 m2 or greater in Jordan where there is ample sun. Private houses sized a minimum of 250 m2 and office spaces sized a minimum 100 m2 must also comply. Finally Jordan’s rooftops and side yards will capitalize on the nearly 330 days of sunshine that they bask in every year, just as we’ve seen in Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt and Israel.

To help households make the solar switch, the Ministry of Energy and the Jordan River Foundation have teamed up to provide $1.8 million in loans to purchase and install all necessary equipment.

In a related measure, Minister of Energy Alaa Batayneh confirmed that new regulations will allow citizens and businesses to sell surplus solar power back to the national grid. This kind of solar power will come from homes and businesses that set up solar voltaic panels as solar hot water heaters use thermal energy to heat water. They don’t create electricity.

“Under this decision, private citizens, businesses and hotels can sell [up to 5 MW of surplus power] directly to public electric utilities and we believe that this is a big step forward for the renewable energy sector,” he said in a press conference, according to The Jordan Times. The recently endorsed Renewable Energy Law had limited sell-back of privately-generated power to 1 MW.

The Electricity Regulatory Commission and the Jordan Electricity Distribution Company are setting the purchase price for citizen-sourced power.  Batayneh indicated that the rate will be set at “current generation costs”.

Domestic water heating makes simple use of solar power: units usually consist of a solar collector with a water storage tank mounted right above the panel.  This type of system is especially efficient: hot water rises to a roof-mounted storage tank through natural thermosiphoning, no mechanical pumping is required.

Despite affordable technology and abundant sunshine, Jordan’s use of solar water heating has been dropping overall. Industry experts blame slow adoption of this simple solar system on inadequate building regulation.  The new measures are viewed as a government attempt to revive the Kingdom’s domestic conversion to renewable energy.

The Renewable Energy Law provides incentives for investment in solar and wind energy projects in order to achieve the national energy goal of having renewable sources account for 10% of Jordan’s energy mix by 2020.

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Although China leads the world in the number of solar water heaters in use, and Israel was the pioneer and chief country-wide user of solar water heaters for 25 years, today the Republic of Cyprus has the distinction of being the world leader of solar water heater users per capita.

Heating water by black solar collector plates on roof tops was originally invented in Israel during the early 1950s, and that country was the first to instigate a national policy in regards to their use by the general public. Neighboring Egypt is also widening the use of solar water heaters, and even poorer sectors of the country are using their ingenuity to build home made versions of solar water heaters.

Israel boasts that its population uses solar energy to heat water at a rate of 0.56 square maters of solar water heating collectors per person. But Cyprus has an even greater percentage with 0.79 square meters per person.

North America,  on the other hand lags far behind, with the USA ranking 36th in installed capacity relative to its population, with just 0.01 square meters installed per person according to same article. China is much more involved in solar water heating with more than 1.8 billion square feet (1,676,134 sq.m) of solar water heating.

Even European countries like Germany are jumping onto the solar water heating bandwagon, with 2 million Germans already heating water in this manner. In Austria, 15% of the population use solar water heating; while Spain has a law requiring that all new or renovated buildings have solar heating installed.

Many Spanish cities like Barcelona now use the sun to heat water

Compared to many other types of water heating systems solar water heaters only require the heat of the sun to provide hot water on sunny days.

The systems can pay for themselves over a short period of time, and in the developing world a home made solar heating system using plastic bottles, can even purify drinking water. The sun is free, abundant and using it for light and heating clearly is a no-brainer for saving greenhouse gas emissions.

Whether it involves passing laws, like Spain did; or simply a desire to utilize a cleaner and cheaper energy source, solar water heating is definitely on the rise all over the planet. We’d like to see its use more widespread in Arabian countries.

More on on solar water heating:
The Sodis Makes light, and water, of plastic bottles
Poor Egyptians Find Innovative Ways to Build Solar Water Heating
Israeli Solar Collectors Heading to North America
Israel Pioneering Use of Bottled Solar Energy Has Others Following Suit

The post Solar Water Heating – what you need to know appeared first on Green Prophet.

The idea is to turn your entire roof space into a solar heat farm.

Solar warmth:
The glass roof tiles trap heat under the glass and feed it through the home heating system.The heated liquid is sent through pipes to connect with the home heating system via a heat exchanger.

How it works:
Under the glass is a waterproof and heat absorbing fabric to trap the hot air in a pocket woven of technical nylon fibers and coated with a heat and light-absorbing layer.

It transfers heat to lined spaces between the roof joists carrying the hot air by being blown by a fan. The hot air is fed through a conversion device that transforms it to a heated liquid.

Once it passes through the heat conversion device the heat can be sent through the house. It works whether the home is heated with heated water or with heated air.

The energy potential:
Each square meter can generate between 300 and 500 kWh (in BTU equivalent) of heat per year, say the inventors.

Space required:
A roof of about 20 sq meters – or 200 sq feet – would make about 8,000 kWh a year that a home would need to stay toasty through cold but sunny winters. You will easily have that much space – 20 feet by 10 feet – on the average home.

Hot weather uses:
In warmer climates it could also be hooked up to an air conditioning unit that uses a heat-absorption chiller. It would also be applicable for use in heating a swimming pool.

Design issues:
For aesthetics sake, you would want to do the entire roof in the same glass tile, and ideally the roof should be angled at about 20 degrees, (depending on your region’s insolation) but anything works, as long as it gathers sunshine. While it will work most effectively on portions of the roof that face south, south-east or south-west, the north-facing portion of the roof could be sealed separately underneath so it will not lose heat for lack of sun.

Engineering benefits:
These glass roof tiles are engineered for super strength and break resistance and have a longer life span than conventional roof tiles in clay or concrete, since the glass is UV resistant and is much more resistant to erosion.

Because the heated glass is warm, shiny and smooth, any snow that accumulates slides off easily, so the roof can keep harvesting the sun’s heat in regions that get snow in winter.

This a great commonsense green building idea. I’m not surprised that he company has won the Nordbygg Gold Medal this year for the best green building innovation in the Swedish construction market.

Images: SolTech Energy

The post People Who Live in Glass Houses…Should Harvest the Desert Sun appeared first on Green Prophet.

Although solar water heaters are now becoming popular in Egypt, pay the equivalent of US $ 600 or more to purchase them is still out of reach to many poor Egyptians reports in Cairo’s English language news media Daily News Egypt. In this article, Cairo resident Hussein Soliman Farag has installed solar collectors he made himself; and as a result, is able to have hot water from the collectors at a fraction of the cost that he would have had to pay, if he bought a commercially made or imported one.

Solar water heating from metal and glass collectors has become one of the most economical and environmentally means for  “capturing” the sun’s rays to produce hot water during daytime hours. Originally invented and developed in Israel during the early to mid 1950s, the concept which involves hooking up the collector plates to water storage tanks or heaters uses virtually no electricity since the water flowing through pipes in the collector plates is fed immediately into the storage tank by the heat created when the sun’s rays strike the collector plates.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujrj-VdDj5s[/youtube]

For a person like Farag, whose monthly income is probably a fraction of the cost of  “store bought” solar collectors, being mechanically inclined enables him to save a considerable amount of the money. He is also resourceful in finding used pieces of  pipe, sheet metal and plate glass.  And when one is watching every piaster, being resourceful helps to survive. What parts cannot be found this way, can be purchased from representatives of solar energy equipment companies like the American company, Solar City,  which is based in the USA, but sells worldwide.

A number of companies dealing with solar water collectors are now doing business in Egypt, as we explored in a previous article on solar hot water heaters.

Due to the “cold peace” between Egypt and Israel much less business in this field is presently occurring. As a result,  most of the equipment needed for these “sun boilers” is imported from countries much farther away than neighboring Israel. Israeli sun boiler  companies, on the other hand, export their products all over the world, and are now making inroads into the very big and lucrative American market.

For  poor people like Hussein Farag, being creative and good with tinkering can be rewarding when one is a bit light in the pocketbook. It’s also good to hear about his concern for the environment.

Photo clip credit: Daily News Egypt

Read more on solar water heating  and purification ideas:

Solar Water Heaters on the Rise in Egypt

Sodis Method Uses Light and Used  Plastics Bottles to Purify Water

Israel’s Pioneering Use of “Bottling” Solar Energy Has Many Following Suit

The post Poor Egyptians Find Innovative Ways to Build Solar Water Heating appeared first on Green Prophet.

Countries in the Arab world are starting to wake up to the potential of solar energy, especially those with no known oil reserves. Morocco is the latest to announce its intentions to solar-ize the country in a $9 billion project, reports the Global Arab Network. When completed, by around the year 2020, Morocco could be supplying about 40% of its entire energy needs by way of the sun. The goals are ambitious, but Morocco’s officials say that the sunny North African country is clearly positioned to deliver: with 3,000 hours of sunshine a year, the country “feels” about 5 kWh per square metre per day.

According to the report, which is based on a late 2009 Reuters story, the country-wide project will include 5 solar power stations, each to produce 2000 MW of electricity in the regions of Ouarzazate, Ain Bni Mathar, Foum Al Oued, Boujdour and Sebkhat Tah.

“This is a bold but realistic project. We will guarantee all the technical and financial resources to make it succeed,” said the country’s Energy Minister Amina Benkhadra. The country is currently looking for tech partners, so prepare those tenders!

As the only North African country with no oil production, its ministers are eager to cut foreign gas and oil imports and to green the country’s carbon footprint. Meanwhile potential partners could include the World Bank, the European Commission, and Germany, and this new ambitious initiative could connect with Desertec, a coalition of 13 energy and technology companies which plans on creating a renewable energy grid in Africa and shipping the energy to Europe.

The Desertec Initiative was launched in 2009 with the intention of bringing together firms with experience in power generation, to build a series of concentrated solar power (CSP), photovoltaic (PV) and wind projects in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Other Arab countries has expressed their desire to go solar including Algeria, Qatar, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia. Jordan, Syria and Tunisia are also heading in the right direction by encouraging the use of domestic solar heating systems. Nearby in Israel, typically not mentioned by Arab news networks in a positive light, the use of such water heaters is quite widespread – even in the Palestinian Authority territories. Israel is also recognized as a world leader in innovating solar energy solutions. Cooperation with Morocco, of which many Israelis share a rich history, might ensue via this new solar announcement.

Solar panels are already used in some remote, off-grid, rural areas in Morocco, and a couple of windmills have already started producing clean power: one in Tangiers and another near Tarfaya. It will be a marvel and green miracle if Morocco goes on track to provide nearly 40% of its energy needs by way of the sun. And we look forward to reporting more news on this exciting announcement.

::Global Arab Network

More on solar power:
The Middle East Could Power World Three Times Over
MENASOL Conference to Tap Into North African-Middle East Solar Potential
Qatar and Syria Look To Turn Deserts Green With Solar Power

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