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John Beardmore

In message .
com, writes
John Beardmore wrote:
In message , raden
writes
In message , John
Beardmore writes

I don't see what my folks signed for as being economically viable

No, but I think our clients divide into at least four categories.

People that want to save the world.

People that like interesting toys.

People that want to set an educational example.

People that want to save money.

All three seem worthy in one respect or another.

The world savers will achieve nothing by fitting solar dhw, as its
counterproductive.

In a general sense or just when people try to save the world ?

Life cycle analysis seems to disagree with you by the way.

To understand that

To understand that, you'd need to be right. I don't think you are.

they'd need to see the connection
between supply & fit cost and the energy input in supplying and fitting
it. Very briefly, money is a form of measure of energy.

It may be an indicator, but not a very good one !

Consider for example the case where a system is installed by one
installer who charges 3000, and another installer installs it for 6000.
Which system has the higher embedded energy ?

To answer that you have to look at what the installer does with the
money. One might plough it back into his company and achieve facility
for
further environmental improvement. The other might fly off one a huge
foreign holiday, but which is which ??

I'd say that price was a very weak indicator of embedded energy.

Without
financial payback It just wont pay back in energy terms either.

There may be a week correlation, but Life Cycle Analysis might be a
better tool to make this determination.

As for education, I doubt theres a single person on the planet -
counting only those in any position to pay for a solar system - who
will be educated to any significant extent by seeing 1 more solar
system in the world.

There are many communities where once one system has been installed,
other people have seen them and chosen to install them.

There are well desgined systems that pay back,

Yes....

but most purchases still
come down to those that fail to properly understand the reasons for
purchase.

Even where this is so, I don't see that it either precludes the
financial
savings or the CO2 mitigation.

Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore