Hot water from photovoltaics

Electricity that you produce yourself by using a photovoltaic system is cheaper than electricity from the power grid. Even if you include the investment in a new system in your bill, it shows that the costs are quickly amortized. In order to make up for the investment costs quickly and to permanently reduce your energy costs, you should keep your self-consumption as high as possible. This means to use a lot of electricity from your own roof.

Depending on the size of the photovoltaic system installed, an average household uses no more than 30% of its own photovoltaic electricity. However, if you use excess solar power to produce hot water, less electricity goes into the grid and you can increase your self-consumption to around 70%. This way, you can completely switch off your heating system, which only provides hot water in summer, and also save money with the power of the sun.

Simple – Clean – Efficient

So far, hot water from solar energy was only known from solar thermal systems. These are relatively complicated and maintenance-intensive systems that work less efficiently, especially during the transitional period and in winter.

On the other hand, photovoltaics is associated with the supposedly relatively expensive technology for generating solar power. But this is no longer true today. On the contrary: photovoltaic modules are now much cheaper than solar collectors. Read more about it here.

Today, you can prepare your hot water much more cheaply with photovoltaics than with a comparable solar thermal system or with conventional heating systems.

Our principle enables you to use your self-generated solar power in the best possible way in your own household.

Our principle enables you to make the best possible use of your self-generated solar electricity in your own household. Because a lot can be done with electricity – and generating heat works particularly well, preferably directly.

We call this principle "cables instead of pipes". In new buildings, laying power cables means significantly lower investment costs than laying pipelines. On the other hand, the refurbishment requires far fewer interventions in the building fabric than a replacement of the water-bearing system. In addition, photovoltaic yields can be used for all energy sectors (electricity, heat, electromobility) of the house.

PV electricity for hot water: How does this work technically?

Using heating rods, surplus solar electricity from the photovoltaic system is used to heat hot water tanks. A heating rod is an electrically operated heating element that is installed in a hot water or buffer storage tank and heats the water there electrically. It is as simple as it sounds. Moreover, the energy losses of a hot water storage tank are low.

It gets even better: there are control elements that intelligently control the electricity generated by a PV system by dosing the heat output of the heating elements very precisely when surplus photovoltaic electricity is available. Solutions from my-PV fall into this category.

Is generating hot water with photovoltaic electricity economical?

There are various opinions on this question, but ours is clear: Yes, it is economical! But as a system owner, take a closer look at the economic efficiency of generating hot water with photovoltaic electricity and do the math. Important questions in this case are:

How high is the current feed-in tariff?

How expensive would the heat be if you had to buy it in or produce it in another way?

In which case do you gain more: if you feed the electricity into the grid or use it yourself?

In addition to heating, water heating accounts for a large part of the energy demand in the household. With our my-PV Power-Coach you can calculate your cost savings and self-consumption easily and quickly.

Your benefits from hot water with photovoltaics

What are the advantages of my-PV's innovation in the area of hot water? Photovoltaic systems are less complicated and require less maintenance than solar thermal systems. Unlike solar thermal systems, photovoltaic systems do not have a heat fluid circuit. Here, power cables transport the energy from the solar module to the hot water storage tank. PV system owners need neither pipes nor pumps for this. So they don't have to worry about antifreeze or maintenance costs either.

Hot water with photovoltaics

... is simpler and cheaper than thermal solar systems.
There are no thermal losses through distribution and circulation lines.
Your self-consumption increases significantly.
Solar energy is only converted into heat where it is needed.
The installation effort is minimised due to "cables instead of pipes".
The installations are simple and therefore require very little maintenance.
There is no need for thermal disinfection of pipes in summer or winter.
There is no need to go to the authorities if you choose our stand-alone ELWA solution, which does not feed electricity into the grid.
You protect your heating system and extend its service life because you can switch it off completely in summer.
You act in a climate-friendly and independent manner because you supply yourself with clean solar energy.
Greater independence from rising energy costs.