Equipment room
All of the wiz bang tech solar stuff that is not on our roof is in the utility room.
This is the Solargenix Hot water heat exchanger. It has a DC pump that is powered by its own solar panel on the roof. If it is sunny, the pump runs; if it is not, no pumping. The roof panels contain a glycol solution, which is pumps down into the heat exchanger, where the heat is transferred to water from the hot water heater in the picture. This is an ordinary domestic hot water heater which holds 80 gallons of water. In the summer months, the water in the tank can reach 160 degrees. A tempering valve brings it down to reasonable temps when it is called for at a fixture.
The tank has electric elements, which I like to turn off at the breaker. If we get a few days of very cloudy weather in a row, the water in the tank starts to get cooler. By keeping the element off whenever possible, we can get a sense of when we are using solar heated water, and when we are using electricity to supplement the system.