Solar Thermal Tour

Click 'Play Tour' above for a step-by-step introduction of how a solar thermal system works and how it can be installed for your home or business.

• The sun heats water flowing in a circuit through the collector panel on your roof.
• The water leaving the collector is hotter than the water entering it and carries its heat toward your hot water tank.
• The water doesn't actually enter your tank and fill it up. Instead, it flows into a pipe on one side of the tank and out of another pipe on the other side, passing through a coil of copper pipes. This heat exchanger inside the tank gives up its heat on the way through.
• You can run off hot water from the tank at any time without affecting the panel's operation. Since the panel won't make heat all the time, your tank will need another source of heating as well, which is usually either a gas boiler or an electric immersion heater.
• The cold water from the heat exchanger returns to the panel to pick up more heat.
• An electric pump, powered by your ordinary electricity supply or by a photovoltaic cell on the roof, keeps the water moving through the circuit between the collector and the water tank.

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