Over the past few months, Free Hot Water has received some significant press for our Solar Thermal+PV apartment complex on 15th St. in San Francisco. The reason for all of this attention is because our engineers designed a solar heating and hot water project that was shown to be cost competitive with a natural gas system—before any incentives.
Free Hot Water is a finalist for the North American Solar Project Award
If you missed the press, you can see the first mention in Solar Industry Magazine and a more detailed article in Solar Power World.
Additionally, Gal Moyal, our chief solar thermal engineer and CEO, was invited to make a presentation about the project at Intersolar.
That was all great, but now we’ve received word from Germany that the same San Francisco project—a 50 unit apartment building in the Mission District — has been selected to be a finalist in the “Solar Projects–North America” category for the Intersolar Award 2013.
The winner is going to be announced during an award ceremony on July 9, 2013, at 3:00 pm at the Intersolar NA show (Moscone Convention Center-West, Level 3, Booth# 9659). We’ll of course be exhibiting there too, (Booth# 7821) , and we hope you’ll join us at some point to celebrate.
Over the years, Free Hot Water has done many solar thermal engineering projects, and many were larger and more complex than this 50-unit apartment building.
So, why is this project getting so much attention? Because solar thermal solutions are finally in a position to beat natural gas heating and hot water systems before any incentives. The general public often says that solar hot water is too expensive or that natural gas is so inexpensive that solar thermal doesn’t make economic sense. Not any more.
Finally, word is getting out: Today, new or renovated apartment buildings can have a cost-competitive solar thermal system that will survive the ups and downs of natural gas—and still save the building’s owner on operating costs with free hot water and free solar heating generated from the sun.
Of course, we wouldn’t have this recognition without our customers, especially Barak Jolish, the project developer who inspired and challenged Free Hot Water engineers to design this innovative, cost-effective, and efficient solar thermal solution.
With the Intersolar finalist recognition, we hope this 15th St. San Francisco project will become an award winning solution, too. But even if it doesn’t win, Free Hot Water engineers will still be able to apply the same design principles to many more projects.
If you want more information about our potentially-award winning San Francisco project before Intersolar, feel free to contact us. Hope to see you there!
