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| News | 3rd October 2007 - Willis Launch Solasyphon |
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One of Northern Ireland's oldest family business, Willis Heating has developed a new solar water heating system that it claims will revolutionise the renewable energy sector.
The newly developed Willis SolaSyphon represents a major change in the way that solar thermal panels produce hot water and is set to reduce home water heating bills by up to 50 per cent and installation costs by up to 30 per cent! On top of this, the company says the Solasyphon is much more eco-friendly and produces hot water considerably more quickly per hour of sunshine than any other system on the market. Willis managing director John Willis explains how the company's latest invention came about. "In recent years, Willis has become increasingly involved in renewable energy but, during this time, we identified a number of problem areas and looked at finding a solution to these problems." "To date, installing a solar thermal panel system requires replacing the existing hot water storage cylinder with a twin coil solar cylinder. This means that the existing hot water tank has to be scrapped which is a huge waste of the precious natural resource of copper. Add to this, the copper required for the new cylinder, the pipework alterations and the man hours required to carry out the work and you get some measure of the waste," he added. |
John Willis (right) of Willis Heating and Plumbing, Geoff Smyth, The Carbon Trust, and Joan Porter, Invest Northern Ireland, shows of the new Solasyphon. "We came up with the idea of using the principals of thermosyphonic action to create a simple 'bolt-on' heat exchange unit, similar in concept to the immersion heater, which would heat the water in a costumer's existing cylinder and remove the necessity to replace the hot water storage cylinder." Article printed in Northern Builder Autumn 2007 |