I had the thought many years ago "Why not make a solar panel system that also generates hot water while cooling the panels down" so glad to see tech like this! SUBBED

Elon, if you're listening... take notes mate. I love that! Appeal straight to the top! 😁👍

I live on a yacht with very limited space for panels. I currently manage with 2 panels and a wind generator. Your info is very valuable to me. Thank you Cheers Gray Australia

This channel is a gold mine of ideas. Thank you.

When my folks built a house back in the mid seventies, it was in an area that didn't have natural gas. Electric hot water was going to be really expensive, so they had the builder install a couple of five by ten foot thermal solar panels on the roof. (Back in those days, photovoltaics were way too expensive for home use.) The thermal panels used antifreeze and a heat exchanger in a separate hot water tank next to the electric one so that nothing would freeze during cold Colorado winters. They worked great, needed next to no maintenance, and saved a ton of electricity and money. If you could combine that with PV's, it would be awesome.

I have one thermal panel among my photovoltaic panels, but this hybrid panel seems to be much smarter and more efficient, not even mentioning that all panels would be the same size and color, so no thermal panel standing out. But more importantly, it solves the conundrum you face when you want to heat not just the water tank, but the whole house: You have to choose between adding more thermal panels and therefore less photovoltaic ones. You don't have to choose with these hybrid panels. I cool my solar panels with air for better efficiency: I cut through the vertical mounting of each panel so air can circulate right under the panels from the bottom to the top of the roof as it heats, and pumped down to warm the house. I didn't experience any snow storm for the past 2 years, no thanks to global warming, but I suppose this system would also melt any snow even at night so that the solar panels are ready to produce as soon as the Sun shines. I wouldn't mind the extra warm water. It would make raising tilapias possible, or it would heat the greenhouse in winter, not just the water tank. By the way, my thermal panel uses cheap glycol, not water, it would be a safer solution for these hybrid panels in freezing winters, and the water that's heated in the heat exchanger in its own pipes is suitable for the kitchen and bathroom too, not just heating. Great video as usual, I hope you'll keep us updated when this technology develops. Sorry, "great" is not good enough, my vocabulary is limited... ;)

It's about time they combined these 2 technology. I'll be the first to buy one.

This explains the PVT system well. I knew very little about the PVT system before. It seems logical to use it rather than PV alone.

During the summer the heat can be used to run an absorption cycle AC to cool the building. If coupled with a thermal storage system you can have solar powered AC.

This is brilliant! I never realized the pv panels needed such temperature regulation. This can be home built as well- simply build insulated cases to run water lines behind the pv panel. I'm planning on building a solar batch heater and I've already built a dual water circuit from city water into my water heater, so if I choose to add pv, I can easily integrate this behind it. Even heating the water 1 degree will save some money with little investment.

Walking around on my roof's solar panels in the summer always made me wonder why someone is "capturing" the radiant heat along with the photovoltaic energy and here we are. We have a pool and we're using pool solar water heating PVC panels NEXT TO our solar panels. If we ever need to replace either system I'm thinking of getting this combined technology - by then it should be cheaper as well.

An additional benefit could exist in winter months, where the thermal panels could act as a sink for water source heat pump. Cold water pumped in to the panels from the heat pump would be able to absorb ambient heat that is then passed to the heat pump.

Good video. This is one of those obvious technologies that make some people go "why hasn't someone invented that before?", but the fact is it was invented long ago, it just adds enough complexity that everyone prefers the simpler version unless necessary. The main cost of solar is installation, these panels are pretty simple so they would not cost much more than regular PV, but you need to do more work installing the pipes and other stuff in addition to panels and electronics. Basically you need to hire plumbers in addition to the solar installer team and that may cost more than simply using your solar electricity to run your water heater. Some homeowners might love these things, but I wonder how useful they would be for large solar farms. Also, if one wants a solar roof instead of panels, would it be possible to put the heat collector pipes under the roof tiles?

It shouldn’t be difficult to add thermal collectors to the Tesla roof. Sure it’s more connections than full size panels but the opportunity is there if one can convince buyers it’s worth it. I for one am totally sold.

I have been working and experimenting with this for 10 years. All countries with a colder season should have this in combination with a heat pump and storage of low-temperature heat in the ground. In Sweden, an average villa would reduce the annual need for purchased energy approx: 80% compared to only heat pump and rock heat system.

Good work. Great info.

Excellent demo

I love what you’re doing, keep it up, I think Tesla would be great to get involved in this, this combined with a very large hot water storage, and a heat pump could be revolutionary for home energy use.

Elon is not an Aussie, he’s South Effrican. Consequently, he is “bru” not “mate”.🤣🤣

Thank you for sharing the information. Great video too.

I'd love to see your sources especially a source that claims it would only increase the cost of the panel by 25%. This may have been true 15 years ago but today I can get a 300W panel for $150 easily which means your PV/thermal panel would cost $187.50. 1 evacuated tube panel can cost $1K so getting this down to $37.50 would be amazing not to mention the cost of the pipes, pump, holding tank(s), Etc.

We bought boiler that uses thermal energy from solar panels in June 2019. I couldn't belive this year on -6 C weather we have 60-70C warm water. To this day we never used our electric boiler to heat water.

this is one of my favorite youtube channels

I worked for a swedish company 10 years ago which was developing that technology.

Thanks so much for getting back to me. I've also discovered another company that does the hybrid panels. Natural technology developments. I've yet to give them a call to see if they are still in business

Thanks SF, that was a great video: comment, like, share.

Of course if this could also be implemented as a roofing material that is discreetly exposing the fifth facade and is a roofing material itself.

You could "bank" excess heat underground using the same system as a get-together heat pump. Then, in the winter, a geothermal heat pump will have more heat to draw from to hear the home.

Hi ! Thank you for the amazing video you created! I really liked it and learned a lot. Among the companies working in the hybrid photovoltaic / thermal panels is DualSun. It's a French company and they already have some projects running with the tech...

I live in a cold climate and put my panels vertical in the winter to keep snow off them. I have seen my output increase 15% on a cold sunny day. I am sure the snow reflecting photons on the panels helps this happen.

Great idea and presentation. Thank you.

When Tesla starts building hvac systems this would be a great option because of their octovalve system for directing heat to where it is needed

It's a niche product or idea. You couple two energy systems, and repair becomes more expensive. In residential systems, the use of the heat would be limited, and seasonal. The pump is parasitic, and when would the extra cost to integrate them yield a net positive energy harvest? It would take a special case where hot water is in demand when the sun is out year round.

Great channel. Highly recommended!

It's worth mentioning heat pumps. 1kWh of electrical energy (which can be used to deliver 5 kWh of heating *or* cooling through a heat pump) is more valuable than the same 1 kWh as heat. So 1 kW pure PV is better than 3 kW pure solar hot water in terms of energy harvested per unit area. But hybrid is better than *either*, because you get more electrical energy and almost as much heat energy.

there is some additional issues I could see with this particularly in cold climate where the heat would be most beneficial. For one thing plumbing and cold do not mix and there is an issue of frozen pipes , this issue can be bypassed by using antifreeze but that's going to reduce efficiency when you're talking about hot water heating.

Simply genius

Makes great sense. Must be ways of converting surplus heat to electric energy. Or cooling. Remember kerosene fridges.

Is the output temperature similar from vacuum tubes to these hybrid panels? If the temperature is much lower on hybrids it can be the case that they give the same energy, but less usable and that you would need a heat pump to concentrate the heat, eating into your actual efficiency.

Another idea was using lens to concentrate more light into the panel and a close cycle thermal engine connected to the cooling tubes.

Excellent... Very informative video, you definately got a thumbs up from me! Thank you.

Excellent technology to harness solar Light energy and Heat energy (both) simultaneously. My question is, the solar heat energy which is harnessed, can't be converted into Electric energy?

I jurry rig this up its not easy but using some focusing lenses I made steam to turn an old steam generator so I use all the potential power

This is great. Where looking to use this methodology for heating water water in a camper van. We're going to have 800W of monocrystaline PV panels on the roof to charge 300A lithium phosphate batteries. We don't want to be carrying gas so thought solar hot water generated by cooling the PV cells was the way to go....ideal. We were thinking of just spiraling plastic pipes directly under each panel and then using a small pump every few minutes to circulate it though to a tank above the shower. But do you think we'd need to use aluminium? We live in Australia, so don't need to worry about water freezing.

People bathe with medium heat water in the summer too!

I think you should also check out the Australian company called ClearVue. It is another technology that works on thermal heat to make electricity.

Great content...Question..is there currently a hybrid manufacturer..?

It probably adds too much cost compared to regular panels. Might be good in cold areas where you could temporarily reverse the process and run warm water through the panels to melt snow and ice off them.

Very good

A heat pump for cooling the panels would be 300% or 400% efficient and would provide more hot water year round.

If you will go for a heatpump already and have plenty of solar roofspace, it would be better to go pure PV panels. As you will have too much hot water in the summer that will be lost. If you have a pool, like mentioned in the video, it's a different story.

I can see this approach may be practical for residential installation in climate where there is a lot of need for home heating. But could this be adapted to AC heat pumps in hot southern climates.

A bit off topic, but there's been some Indian scientists/engineers there, that have been kicking around the idea of LTA technology (airships). Seems like airships would be an ideal platform (massive surface area) for experimenting with various solar energy concepts... Surplus heat could be used in developing heat exchange tech, such as flash (H2O) condensers for ballasting etc...

If the temperature is high enough it could be used to heat an absorbsion chiller.

Interesting.

Awesome I will convert my own solar panels! It makes a lot of sense to me and shouldn’t be that difficult plus I will have a heated indoor swimming pool!

I am just learning about solar and was wondering the same thing myself with out using water, but a cavitation cooling airflow under the panels I’m an artist not an engineer but it would seem that there would be a way to cool the panels that the air would naturally draw from a larger hole to a smaller one ... I e : natural cavitation pehaps it is how a heat pump works? Or could there be small fans which are heat generated which turn and circulate the air under the panel to move it ? Perhape using freon? As refridgerators use? Just the action of the difference in heat flow would draw itself?

Very interesting,thankyou.the exsausted heat in hot countries from the excess hot water in the system,you can generate electricity 1-use a heated salt/hydrogen battery 2-use the heat/pressure to lift a gravity battery(maybe your house) ( : thankyou

Another great video from Synergy files. Which solar hybrid panel do you recommend ? My solar PV supplier doesn't stock the hybrid panel. Thanks

It’s still blowing my mind lol what if I bury a shipping container full of my solar panels effectively making an underground oven and use convex mirrors to heat oil in metal pipes to 600 degrees in a separate insulated oil tank and maintain a constant whatever temperature is best for the solar panels 24 hours a day! 4x fold I was going to do the same thing for the swimming pool in Arizona elevation 5,000 feet! I just need emergency blankets and the warm pool water will warm my house at night in the cement floor!

Pls suggest some good brand too...

I looked into this almost 10 years ago and the price difference for the panels was double even before the extra installation costs 😟

Idea: Take the generated hot water, run it across a refrigerant evaporator unit, and then run the refrigerant gas through a turbine in order to generate even more electricity. In the summer time at least, that would be preferable to dumping heat to atmosphere. The question really is whether the electricity generated will be sufficient to run the refrigerant compressor. If so, then it could be a worthwhile component to add to the system.

I'm sorry maybe I'm missing something, can't you swap the water with something with a lower boiling point, and than use the expansion of the gasses to spin a turbine just like modern power plants? Or use the temperature deferential between the hot liquid and colder ground temp to produce electricity, which evers more efficient, I imagine the phase change idea would be and it'd also help further cool the panels. Wouldnt this greatly increase efficiency?

Cooling won't happen if solar thermal water is already heated up enough >60C. Dilemma: PV needs cool water, but you have solar thermal to heat up, and in most cases store, the water.

Good....

So....there aren't any companies making these yet? It would save on your hot water bills too! Was hoping for a link to a product.

Running a fluid to extract heat beneath a solar array on a roof may exceed the structural limit. Maybe heat pipes can be used instead.

very nice idea in paper. but complex in practice. it seems PV industry is not yet see it as beneficial :)

How do you handle the hard water that in time will corrode the pipes?

Can you make a video explaining the reason behind falling of price of pv cells?

Can this system be retrofitted in existing installations, particularly 100 MW size

Prefer the monocrystalline panels excellent performance

It is indeed a great technology however you only will generate a significant amount of heat in the summer which is when it is typically not needed (unless you have an aforementioned pool) although the extra bonus percentage of heat generated in spring and fall is nice and the extra electricity is great. In winter one would however need to be careful of freezing or perhaps bleed the pipes. Still its a good technology in theory atleast, but the 25% additional cost is for the panels alone, we also need to connect those panels and set up the plumbing required pushing the costs to be significantly higher than just 25%. Please don’t assume I’m a skeptic, I think it’s actually a fantastic idea, but it is situational and I think for progress we need to be realistic about the broad scale application

🌞 💪...!!!

Are such panels manufactured in India yet ? How expensive will it be for an individual to convert from a PV to PVT panel system ? Will he have to junk the PV panel installation made already ?

Can’t believe it’s not already adopted!

So very well done.....accurate....informative....and concisely delivered...🤗

Nice video! This would be great for me as I have limited roof space, I have about 0 m2 but unfortunately I can not get a way to connect the water without ugly exposed pipes. I wouldn't call ellon on this one. He is great but let's be honest, he's market is the high end market and I wouldn't be able to afford it. He's idea of an electric car is a model 3, my idea of an affordable eletric car is a Dacia Spring/Renault Kwid.... Maybe a Zoe if I get that rise.

it is good to use this panel

Who makes these products? Seems like installation time/cost would double or more, yes?

How about "storing" the heat underground, then "taking it out" with a soil heat pump during winter - when you actually need the most heat?

What about combining it with a sterling engine, or some other method, to convert the heat into electricity instead of heating up water?

Would be great if the hot water from the panels could get converted into electricity when the boiler can't accumulate more heat. Any idea's ??

Why not use some sort of heat condenser and steam generator to use the heated water to produce electricity when it's not needed for water?..

It is easier to use a heat pump with a high CoP. Best regards from Egypt.

I would use mineral oil or cooking oil that could get up to a high temperature. Then store that in a well-insulated tank then use it to create steam and drive a weed wacker or (other small engines) that has been converted into a steam engine that in turns drives an alternator that charges the battery bank that runs the appliances in the house that have been converted to 12 or 24-volt appliances.

0:02 Combine concentrated solar and concentrated wind with a folding mirrored cone dish and a cylinder down the mddle lined with high temperature high efficiency solar cells. If you heat compressed air in the cylinder, you can drive a gas turbine with it. Some solar farms do that. They store the energy in a pile of gravel and recover the energy with a gas turbine to make electricity. This kind of system might generate six or eight times the elecyrical energy as the same area in regular solar panels for a small fraction the price. Some cars have a combination turbocharger, electric motor and generator to spin the turbocharger for faster power in between acceleration and conserve energy. It might be about the right size for a gas turbine to drive the dish energy system. 0:02

From were we get this and price,

thank you for the video can u provide me the reference u had used ?

One one hand, we are nowhere near the theoretical limits for solar. The Shockley-Queisser limit, which is about 33%, applies to a single-junction silicon PV cell, without concentration. Other configurations can do much better. OTOH of course, it's a matter of extra factors: manufacturing cost, how much direct sunlight you have (therefore how much you can concentrate), and a few other matters. Theoretically, with direct sunlight and concentration, you could exploit the maximum effective temperature available by concentration, which is the same as the temperature of the surface of the sun: about 6300 Kelvins. Divide that by the sum of itself and the ambient temperature (typically 300 K), and you get 6300/6600=0.95, so about 95% efficiency. There are a number of approaches you can take to milk more useful work out of the incident sunlight. It's a significant subject, probably worth a whole bunch of videos.

This guy always reminds me of GradeAUnderA xD

PVT can be a great option in colder countries where the entire energy can be used, even in hotter countries, the increased solar electricity generation and the longevity is a boon. But, what do you think of A Solar panel that also uses peltier effect, that should also generate electricity and as a result should cool the panel. I had looked it up a few weeks ago..couldn't find much. Can you research into it?

Rather than throw the heat away or into the ground (which limits it to new build instllations), why not use phase change heatstore batteries?

It suppose to be done 2-3 years ago

Are there any real consumer hospitable companies that make this technology? Hell, I just realized you can mount the solar panel over the solar heat collectors and get some of the advantages without waiting for a consumer m/DIY friendly company to start selling these.

Is there commercial vendors of this or is it just theoretical?

So, this would heat my pool!? What companies do this?

To cool the panels with water tubes from the back... Doesn't sound new Good for highlighting it though

These existed for a while now, they must have a major flaw, that no major manufacturer has been producing them.