[MaXtreeM]

This is something I wish I could find more actual data than people opinions. On the surface it seems like a natural fit to use the black surface to also heat water and also increase longevity and efficiency of solar panels. But many people argue that this doesn't make sense from economic point of view and can decrease longevity of the overall system. Sadly right now I don't think there are enough sources to make confident decision.

I am in the process of building a house in central Europe. My source of heat will be a ground-source heat pump from boreholes, which means using it as cooling for solar panels in the summer would be quite cheap (I specifically ordered a model of the heat pump wich has cooling mode build in). Added benefit would be that heating the boreholes in summer should increase their longevity because there is a potential of "sucking out the holes" (don't know if this is the right term in english) after decades of using them as a heat source - again something I could not find data supporting this claim so I don't know if I should be worried about this.

My combination seemed like a great fit to install water cooled PV but probably will not do it just because there is not a single contractor who does it and nobody who has it installed to give me advices. I hope that in 25 years when I should suspect to do a PV change it will be decided if it is a good idea or not.

[perlgeek]

> probably will not do it just because there is not a single contractor who does it and nobody who has it installed to give me advices.

And this is why subsidiaries for pilot projects are super important.

As a society, we really should try out such ideas, but of course, the first few times you do it, it's more expensive and error-prone, so there should be some subsidiaries or other incentives (tax reduction?) to kickstart this.