Los calentadores solares: Cómo ahorrar dinero en agua caliente sanitaria y climatización

Según el Instituto para la Diversificación y Ahorro de la Energía (IDAE) el consumo medio de energía de un hogar español es de 10.521 kWh al año, de los cuales 2/3 corresponden al uso de la calefacción y el agua caliente sanitaria (ACS). Una forma sencilla y eficiente de ahorrar gran parte de esta energía es mediante la instalación de calentadores solares. 

El uso de sistemas solares térmicos permite ahorrar hasta el 50% de la electricidad o el gas usados en una vivienda, cubriendo hasta el 85% del consumo de agua caliente. Estos porcentajes varían dependiendo del lugar geográfico en cuestión. Siendo España uno de los países con más horas de radiación solar en todo el mundo, nos encontramos en una situación envidiable a la hora de instalar este tipo de calentadores. No obstante también es necesario tener un sistema de apoyo convencional.

Los calentadores solares son equipos que utilizan la energía solar para calentar agua. Se usan tanto en aplicaciones domésticas como industriales. Para el caso que nos compete aquí, que es el ahorro de energía en nuestros hogares, la energía solar térmica proveniente de este tipo de equipos resulta apropiada para cubrir una parte importante de nuestras necesidades de:

• Agua caliente sanitaria
• Calefacción
• Climatización de piscinas
• Refrigeración

Desde 2006 es obligatorio instalar calentadores solares para el calentamiento de piscinas y ACS en todos los edificios de nueva construcción y viviendas rehabilitadas en España. La producción exigida depende de factores como el tamaño del edificio o la localización geográfica. Los resultados tras la entrada en vigor de esta ley y la decisión de muchos particulares de apostar por las energías limpias y por el ahorro, han hecho que haya instalados en España más de 1.500.000 metros cuadrados de colectores solares.

La vida útil de estos equipos es de unos 20 años y podemos afirmar que actualmente es una tecnología madura y fiable, y la inversión se amortiza a medio plazo. En definitiva los calentadores solares no son sólo una alternativa respetuosa con el medio ambiente sino también con nuestros bolsillos.

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The first solar airplane reaches Spain

During the World Future Energy Summit celebrated this year I was fortunate to attend Mr. Bertrand Piccard´s presentation on Solar Impulse. Mr. Piccard is known for being the first person who used a balloon to travel around the world  non-stop. He founded Solar Impulse and, together with the engineer and fighter pilot André Borschberg, is responsible for the success of this project.

The Solar Impulse airplane does not use a single drop of fuel: it is powered strictly by solar energy. It has wingspan of an Airbus A340 jetliner, a length of 21.8 m and 1600 kg weight. This ultra-lightweight aircraft has 12000 solar cells allocated along the wings that capture the sun light during the day, charging the batteries that will provide the power to fly at night. 

After 7 years of research and hard work, in the summer of 2010 the Solar Impulse airplane completed its first 24-hour flight. Tomorrow, May 24th, it will start a 48-hour flight of 2500 km from Switzerland to Morocco, with a technical stop in Madrid. It will depart from Payerne at 06:45 am (Spanish time), crossing France and the Pyrenees and landing in Madrid-Barajas airport at 02:00 am on Friday.

This will be the longest flight of the airplane so far, which is a preparation for the next challenge: a round the world flight in 2014.

If you want to be part of this journey, you can follow their first intercontinental flight tomorrow via live streaming from their website: http://solarimpulse.com/en/

The Solar Impulse team is not trying to make a revolution on the air transport, but on the mindset of the people and how they think of renewable energies.

In his speech Mr. Piccard said: "Our airplane is not designed to carry passengers, but to carry a message".

For me this project has demonstrated that clean energies can achieve things that might seem to be impossible a priori, so who knows if in a few years Solar Impulse will be delivering  more than just a message?

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Masdar City

The construction of Masdar City, unveiled in 2006, is part of Abu Dhabi´s ambitious plan to become a global hub of excellence in renewable energy and clean technologies.

Building a clean and sustainable city is not a utopia anymore: Masdar City is a reality! The city, under continuous construction since 2008, relies entirely on renewable energy sources (mostly solar power) and uses cutting edge technologies for waste treatment and for achieving a sustainable carbon neutral ecology.

Masdar seeks to become a leader in making renewable energy a real and viable business. It is a living lab, a place to develop and test new technologies and projects and, if successful, commercialize and replicate them in other cities.

The city has been designed by the British firm Foster and Partners and its architecture is inspired by traditional Arabian cities. The first phase was finished in September 2011 and comprises six buildings of the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology campus, including residential buildings, laboratories and a Knowledge Center, a total of 35,000m² of gross floor area. There are also a number of retail, services and food outlets. The second phase will be finished by the end of 2012, when the first commercial building in the city and Siemens and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) headquarters are completed and fully operational, with a total area of 110,000m².

At full build-out by 2025, Masdar is expected to have 40,000 residents and another 50,000 commuters.

But Masdar is not just a clean city with zero carbon footprint, it is also a smart city. In the next posts we will see what makes Masdar different from other cities, what makes it sustainable and smart.

In the meantime I’ll leave this video here so you can learn more about this amazing project.

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