Santa Barbara's Community Environmental Council — Encouraging Solar Photovoltaics
Here’s an interview I conducted earlier today with Megan Birney, Energy Manager at Santa Barbara’s Community Environmental Council. Megan explains her organization’s program to encourage the installation of solar photovoltaics at local non-profits.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaTc9DwEK6U&w=500&h=375]
Generally photovoltaics don’t have an efficiency greater than 20% whereas when solar energy is used to heat homes and provide hot water, the efficiency can exceed 50%. Considering that one can expect an efficiency more than 2.5 times as great when using solar for heating than when using solar to generate electricity, it would seem to make more sense to use solar for heating. Perhaps the problem is that subsidies are provided for PV but not for heating.