{"id":192218,"date":"2017-08-14T18:30:39","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T16:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=192218"},"modified":"2017-08-14T17:35:40","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T15:35:40","slug":"heat-pump-vs-solar-energy-heres-which-saves-you-the-most-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/192218\/heat-pump-vs-solar-energy-heres-which-saves-you-the-most-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat pump vs solar energy – here’s which saves you the most money"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a post load-shedding world, the South African market has settled on\u00a0heat pumps and solar water heaters to fight increasing electricity tariffs, according to\u00a0Cala van der Westhuizen, head of marketing at\u00a0Energy Partners South Africa.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Property Wheel<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0van der Westhuizen noted that\u00a0water heating accounts for as much as 50% of a household\u2019s electricity use.<\/p>\n

\u201cReplacing a home\u2019s conventional geyser with a renewable energy alternative is one of the first steps to drastically reduce an average home\u2019s monthly electricity spend, said\u00a0van der Westhuizen.<\/p>\n

“The current renewable energy powered\u00a0water heating options available to home owners are heat pumps and solar water heaters.”<\/p>\n

While both heaters do fundamentally the same thing,\u00a0a heat pump uses energy from the surrounding air to heat water, while a solar water heater relies on the sun for power.<\/p>\n

Pricing compared<\/strong><\/h3>\n

According to\u00a0van der Westhuizen, a solar\u00a0heater is traditionally much easier to install than a heat pump, with the the total cost of an average 200 litre system costing around R26,000<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

He notes that in the short-term, this is cheaper than an average heat pump with a 300 litre efficient tank system, which costs around R35,500.<\/strong><\/p>\n

They will also typically last for over 10 years, while\u00a0heat pumps generally need to be replaced after five to ten years, he said.<\/p>\n

However, despite initial the steep up front costs, heat pump systems have significant advantages over solar heating, van der Westhuizen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA solar panel needs to be oriented towards the sun to operate at maximum efficiency, and when there is no direct sunlight on the system, like at night or on an overcast day, the system relies on a regular geyser element.”<\/p>\n

“As a result, the efficiency of a solar heating system fluctuates between 45% and 70%. This comes down to an average drop in energy costs by approximately 54% over the course of one year.\u201d<\/p>\n

In contrast, a heat pump system is only slightly affected by variations in temperature, and therefore it runs efficiently at any time of day, said van der Westhuizen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt requires approximately one-third of the energy of a conventional geyser to heat the same amount of water, resulting in an average energy saving of up to 70%.”<\/p>\n

“This results in a cumulative cost saving of around R62,500<\/strong> for a standard four member household using an average of 52 litres of warm water per person over a ten year period.”<\/p>\n

“By comparison, a solar heating system achieves around R59,500<\/strong> in savings under the same conditions,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0Why Cape Town pays more for electricity than Johannesburg<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Water heating currently accounts for as much as 50% of a South African household\u2019s electricity use – these are options that will save you the most money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":83713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[12146,26,12130],"class_list":["post-192218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-energy-partners","tag-headline","tag-property-wheel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192218"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192236,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192218\/revisions\/192236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}