In addition to passive solar, some really great technology for creating hot water using solar power exists. Generally, this involves putting panels on the roof of a building and circulating water through those panels (through black tubes). As the water circulates through the panels, it heats up and is brought into the building at fairly high temperatures. Depending on the system and the environment, it may need additional heating but a lot of energy is saved by using the roof panels.
Berks County Community Foundation, through the Metropolitan Energy Company Sustainable Energy Fund actually helped provide financing for a solar hot water system at the Adams County Prison. If you think about it, a prison uses alot of hot water.
On the other hand, an office building like ours uses very little hot water. Not nearly enough to justify installing a solar hot water system.
This of course, illustrates one of the principles of the green building idea. There is no "one size fits all" approach to a smart building. Every building has a different use, a different environment, different demands and the technology that might work for one may not work for the next.
In the next posting, we'll explore why our building doesn't (currently) include plans for generating electricity from solar panels (called "photovoltaics" or "PV" for short) and what YOU might be able to do about it.
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