‘You mainly have free sizzling water’: how Cyprus grew to become a world chief in photo voltaic heating

The Thriamvos firm truck pulls up at midday outdoors the four-storey constructing within the coronary heart of Nicosia.

It’s the third rooftop set up of a solar-powered water heating system that Petros Mihali and his assistant, Soteris, have made within the Cypriot capital since their working day started at 7am.

The method is completely choreographed and nearly all the time the identical: within the searing noon solar, the crane bolted on to the truck hoists the boiler up first, then the black-paned photo voltaic panels, then the galvanised metal mount on which your entire system will stand. Inside two hours of the thermal expertise being arrange, the family, say the Thriamvos firm staff, may have “gone photo voltaic”.

“We do round 4 installations a day throughout Cyprus,” says Mihali. “And every takes little greater than two hours at most as a result of, just like the system itself, it’s all really easy.”

Cyprus has outstripped all different EU member states in embracing hot-water photo voltaic techniques, with an estimated 93.5 % of households exploiting the choice vitality kind for home wants.

EU figures present the jap Mediterranean island exceeding renewable vitality targets set within the heating and cooling of buildings due to the widespread use of the photo voltaic thermal expertise.

“There are a lot of areas the place Cyprus has not achieved greenhouse gasoline emission objectives,” says Charalampos Theopemptou, the island’s first surroundings commissioner. “However by way of renewable vitality assets getting used for the sustainable heating and cooling of buildings, we’ve met the goal simply, exactly due to such in depth utilisation of photo voltaic water heaters for thus a few years.”

Theopemptou, a Inexperienced occasion MP who heads the Cypriot parliament’s surroundings committee, can nonetheless vividly recall seeing the primary photo voltaic water heating system put in on the rooftop of his spouse’s household dwelling nearly 60 years in the past.

“It was within the late Sixties that the water heaters have been launched to Cyprus, and I can nonetheless keep in mind the very first system right here as a result of it occurred to be erected on the roof of that constructing in Nicosia,” he recollects. “The Israelis have been those to introduce the expertise to us and it shortly took off as a result of it’s so easy. All you want are photo voltaic panels, a tank and copper pipes. Ever since, it’s been a beautiful answer to the new water wants of households right here.”

The photo voltaic thermal techniques not solely collected photo voltaic vitality as warmth – often generated via electrical energy and the burning of fossil fuels – they have been extraordinarily cost-effective and had helped spawn a whole business, he explains.

“It’s been nice for low-income households after which there’s the roles: so many have been generated,” the MP says. “There are the native producers who produce the components after which all of the people who find themselves educated to put in them. It’s large enterprise.”

In his function as surroundings commissioner, Theopemptou pushed laborious to make the photo voltaic techniques compulsory on all newly constructed residential and industrial buildings – a transfer instituted by Israel again within the Nineteen Seventies.

“In my function as commissioner it was a precedence,” he says. “Architects now need to guarantee that rooftops not solely have sufficient area for the installations however that they’ll additionally carry the burden.”

The recognition of the water heaters is such {that a} union of native photo voltaic thermal industrialists was established in 1977. Since then, greater than 962,564 sq. cubic metres of “photo voltaic [panel] collectors” have been put in, the union says.

More and more, the nation’s vibrant vacationer business has additionally resorted to the inexperienced answer with solar-powered sizzling water techniques deployed in, they are saying, near 100% of inns.

Electrical energy was gradual to succeed in households throughout Cyprus. It wasn’t till 1903 that electrical energy was launched by the British colonial authorities to the island. In 1952, eight years earlier than the nation gained independence, its Electrical energy Authority was ultimately established. In truth, in distant areas the photo voltaic techniques have been usually placed on to village rooftops earlier than the arrival of the facility grid.

With many of the community nonetheless operating on mazut gasoline oil or diesel, Cyprus is among the many cohort of EU nations pressured to purchase emission quotas from different member states to fulfill authorized goals – an obligation that accounts for as much as a 3rd of the month-to-month value of electrical energy payments, a lot to the ire of Cypriot households. That has additionally performed a task in owners putting in photo voltaic water heating techniques.

For Demetra Asprou, a retired engineer, it’s apparent {that a} area blessed with greater than 300 days of sunshine a 12 months ought to embrace photo voltaic vitality. “It reduces electrical energy prices, will increase the effectivity with which sizzling water is offered and is type to the surroundings,” she says. “Why would anybody use different, extra conventional means to warmth up water when just a few hours of daylight, between 11am and 2pm, is sufficient for a 200-litre [44-gallon] tank to be full of heat water that may final 48 hours? On days when there isn’t a daylight, which is uncommon, you all the time have electrical energy as a backup if crucial.”

Now in her 70s, Asprou, who lives in a Finnish-style log home within the foothills of the Troodos Mountains, a 30-minute drive from Nicosia, was a convert to the thermal system almost 40 years in the past.

“Set up prices could also be thrice greater at this time, however there are EU-funded grants that the federal government fingers out and inside a 12 months it’s all paid off,” she says. “After that, you mainly have free sizzling water and see your electrical energy payments significantly diminished. In a rustic like Cyprus, it’s a no brainer.”

Theopemptou accepts that the photo voltaic techniques have one disadvantage: they’re not good for the skyline. “There’s no manner about it, they’re ugly on a rooftop,” he laments. “If I’ve one remorse its that we didn’t handle to introduce laws to enhance the aesthetics of the installations. That stated, I nonetheless consider they need to be mandated on all buildings throughout the area, given the nice variety of days we’ve got sunshine within the Mediterranean.”