The Happy Cow Creamery, located on McKelvey Road south of Greenville, S.C. in Ware Place, is the first commercial organic dairy farm with a solar hot water system. It has been known as green locally because it raises organic grass-fed cows, uses on-the-farm bottling, and does not use chemicals or chemical fertilizers. It also uses the sun to heat the water for its dairy operation with the thermo-siphon solar water heater it installed on its dairy building roof using gravity and thermal convection.
On the top are the insulated storage tanks where the cooler water falls down through tubing, is heated by the passive solar energy and rises back to the tanks, no pump or electricity necessary. The water heated to a temperature of 160 degrees is drawn out of the tanks for the dairy's uses.
To tour the creamery get together a group of 20 or more and contact the Tranthams during the months of April to May and September to November on Tuesday through Friday. Occasionally Saturday tours are scheduled and open to the public. Watch the entire milk process riding a trolley to see the grazing paddocks, touring the milking parlor, the converted silo bottling plant, and sampling the milk. Ask about their solar hot water system. http://www.happycowcreamery.com
Heating household water is one of the most energy-intensive activities and a high percentage of monthly electric bills especially when you heat a swimming pool, hot tub or spa and maintain a steady comfortable temperature. Solar water heaters pipe water through a system that uses thermal energy from sunlight to heat it for free and it is stored in a specialized hot water tank to be used later on. An active solar hot water system uses pumps to move the water while a passive solar hot water system uses thermal dynamics like the creamery's system.
Solar water heaters can cut hot water costs by 60 to 70 percent so recouping initial installation costs can occur in 4 to 8 years. Possible rebates and incentives can lower the installation costs. There are more solar hot water programs than for home photovoltaic systems. The Federal Incentive Program pays for us to 30 percent of the installation cost of a residential solar system in the form of a tax credit set to expire at the end of 2016.
Check out solar chat rooms like solar panel talk where in http://www.nabcep.org/wp-content
they have an excellent solar panel installation guide. The residential solar blog at calFinder has information on new solar innovations and contractors. http://www.solar.calfinder.com'
www.SolarBlvd.com has solar components for sale.
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