The Sierra Club has pushed for, and succeeded in a law for all new homes in Hawaii to have solar water heaters. There is even a 35% tax break for installing them on existing homes.
Now I have never been to Hawaii, but I have heard it is warm and sunny there. So what a great place to use solar. And from everything I have read heating water the traditional way takes a lot of energy. It could cost up to $500 a year to heat a normal home’s water heater. I also do not know how much of a backup heating system they would need in Hawaii. Even in my home of Virginia, we do have something like winter and for those few months a roof top solar water heater may not be the best alternative, even though the rest of time it would work just great.
The other good things about this are that there will be construction standards created which means that crews will know what the standards are and inspectors will know what good looks like. Jobs will be created since Solar Water Heaters are harder to install than your standard, stick it in the garage and make sure the hot water pipe comes out of it, water heater. And with the higher cost of energy in Hawaii, the return on investment should be even faster. Way to go Sierra Club and the Hawaii legislature. Government should all help us help ourselves, and this does that.
