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Heating your pool with solar energy allows you to warm the water with natural, renewable energy that is free of carbon emissions.

Find it! Solar pool heaters

When choosing a solar pool heating system, see if it's certified by the Solar Rating Certification Corporation. You can also get help from a free downloadable buyer's guide.

For installation, Find Solar, a partnership between several solar associations and the US Department of Energy (DOE), can connect you to professionals who work in renewable energy. It will also tell you about rebates and tax incentives for solar systems.

Solar pool heating: How it works

Solar water heaters are in the mainstream today—they are more accessible, more affordable, and better-developed than when they were invented in the 1970s and were considered exotic. Although you can install a solar thermal water heater to supply hot water for your entire house, that is a separate system from one used to heat a pool, which is much simpler to set up and maintain.

• Solar pool heating works the way a garden hose does that has been lying in the sun; when you turn the faucet on, hot water comes out. The hose acts as a solar collector, transmitting the energy of the sun to the water inside it. In a solar heating system, the water gets warmed by running through solar collectors such as a network of black plastic hoses that have had the sun shining on them. Collectors can also be made of other materials that readily absorb the heat of the sun, like flexible rubber mats or panels made of copper or aluminum tubes. *Panels of solar conductors are installed on the roof of the house facing south. The average pool needs seven to 12 panels, or an area of panels that are about 50 to 80 percent of the size of the pool. The entire system costs an average of $2000-$3000.
• The filtration system that your pool already has pumps water through the solar collectors, which warm it, and then the warm water returns to the pool. By comparison, in a solar system used to supply hot water for the entire house, you need a tank to store heated water. Here, the pool itself is the storage tank, full of warm water.
• A solar pool heater will work reliably even on cloudy days and solar energy can cover most or all of a pool’s heating needs, but a gas or electric heater is often used to kick in if additional warm water is needed.

Heating your pool with solar energy helps you go green because...

• You're freeing yourself from global warming-causing carbon emissions. Switching your natural gas or propane heater with a solar heater halts about 3 to 10 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each swimming season. That’s about the same amount produced by driving your car for a year. year.[1]
• You're using energy that is infinitely renewable.
• It may be a step toward powering your entire house with solar energy. You are also lighting the way for others to convert to solar power.

Additional benefits

• You’ll save money, year after year. Heating a pool in a typical season can cost in excess of $2,000 using natural gas.[2] That’s about what it costs to install a solar pool heater, and after you do, the fuel—sunshine—is free. Solar energy is also an inflation-protected investment; the price of the fuel (zero) never goes up.
• There's much less maintenance than a traditional heating system. To operate a solar heater, you usually switch a control on at the beginning of the season, and at the end of the season switch it off. Unlike gas and electric heaters, which should be serviced by a technician every year, a solar heater rarely requires servicing. Since there are no moving parts, the system is silent.
• Solar panels have a minimum 10-year warranty and generally last 15 to 20 years or longer.
• Solar power can extend your swimming season. With free energy from the sun, you can add two to four weeks to the beginning and to the end of the season.

Swimming pools use an uncommon amount of energy. The amount of energy it takes to heat an average pool is roughly the same as to power an entire house for three months.[3] This energy has traditionally come from propane, gas, or electric heaters, which emit large amounts of carbon dioxide. To supply the amount of electricity used by the average American home in a year, power plants emit 7.8 metric tons of CO₂.[4] 98 percent of electricity in the United States comes from non-renewable resources such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. [5]

Solar water heaters are catching on as a way to eliminate carbon emissions while heating the pool, and as a renewable energy source. More than half a million solar hot water systems have been installed in the United States, mostly on single-family homes. The majority of these systems are used to heat swimming pools.[6]

The US Department of Energy's Million Solar Roofs program was started in 1998 to achieve the goal of having at least 1 million solar energy systems installed on rooftops across the United States by 2010.[7] Findsolar.com, a partnership between solar energy associations and the Department of Energy, has also set a goal of facilitating the installation of over 10,000 solar heating systems by providing information about and connection to solar energy.[8]

If a solar heater is used instead of coal-burning heat over 25 years (the estimated life of a solar water system) 194.5 tons of CO₂ emissions would be eliminated per household.[8] The installation of one million solar systems could eliminate carbon dioxide emissions equal to that produced by 850,000 cars over the cars' lifetime.[7]

Findsolar.com estimates that they have eliminated 739,489 tons of greenhouse gases by connecting people to solar energy. Their goal is 2 million tons, or 10,283 solar systems.[8]

Tax incentives and rebates

One of the reasons solar heaters are growing in popularity is that the incentives can be substantial. In California, residential installations rose 53 percent in 2004, thanks to a generous state rebate program. In New Jersey, the number of homeowners applying for state rebates doubled in 2005.[7]

Check the National Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy for state policies and the Solar Energy Industries Association for federal tax incentives.

Also check with your local electric utility company. Many offer rebates for solar water systems as they help utilities reduce energy use during times of high demand.

External links

• Florida Solar Energy Center
• Solarenergy.com Includes a simple calculator to determine how many panels your pool needs.
• Solar Today Magazine
• New York Times - Plugging Into the Sun