Evacuated Tube Solar Thermal HVAC Systems

We have all heard of solar thermal water heaters by now, I hope. The system whereby liquid is heated inside black boxes on your roof and pumped into a heat exchanger and used to heat hot water in a tank. These solar thermal systems can also be used to heat radiant floors.

But how many people know that this kind of system can also power an HVAC system as well? Incredibly, they do, as evacuated tube solar thermal panels can be coupled with absorption chiller technology to heat and cool your house.

A company called SolarPanelsPlus has taken the two tried and tested technologies of solar thermal and absorption chiller and combined them to make an affordable, efficient, no-fossil-fuel burning HVAC.

One drawback is this type of solar thermal system will not work at night even with battery backup, so you will probably keep your other HVAC unit as a backup. But the energy savings are huge, and even on cloudy winter days this system can take enough sunlight and make heating and cooling power out of it.

This is definitely something to consider if you want to retrofit a new HVAC that will let you almost completely stop using your other fuel-burning system and begin using the free power from the sun.

Evacuated solar tube powered HVAC units by SolarPanelsPlus run on little electrical energy, and as with other appliances that run on electric, this can be offset by incorporating some solar PV.

This system does not use ozone-depleting refrigerants, and uses Lithium Bromide. This innovative HVAC option can also be set up to desalinate or distill drinking water.

—Paul McGinniss, canvas Healthy Home columnist