Sure, solar panels get wicked hot and are more efficient when cold, so attaching something to scavenge heat from them, bonus hot water and a little electricity are all wins until you factor in the cost of doing so and realize you would get 10x the return on adding a few more panels.
We have passive thermal heat tubes on our roof to heat our pool. It works amazingly well. I want to put PV on our roof, but that’d mean having to pull up those tubes first and replacing our pool heater with something electric.
Turns out there’s companies that do hybrid systems! Water is used to cool the PV, increasing the efficiency of the panels in the process, and then the heated water is used wherever you need it.
Unfortunately it seems there’s only a couple of providers, it’s rare to find installers that do it, and it’s ssuuuppppeeerrr expensive relative to the normal options. Such a shame. I wish there were more options here. It seems like a great approach.
We just did the opposite and ripped up our solar hot water system. We have a metal roof and a salt water pool. Problem is that these systems can and do leak. Salt water on a metal roof makes creates rust.
With photovoltaic panels being dirt cheap, we decided to rather heat our pool with a heat pump that is powered by our own electricity.
> until you factor in the cost of doing so and realize you would get 10x the return on adding a few more panels.
You're looking what the cost would be now and I don't think they were suggesting that, but rather as a direction of development for panels.
Luckily this is exactly how things work and why we have continues progress in the area, including with the batteries. Because 10 years ago you wouldn't even bother with super expensive Lithium batteries for home energy storage and go with NiCd, right?
