Learn Chinese: Learn Chinese online - Heat for the tubs of China

WORLD / Wall Street Journal Exclusive

Heat for the tubs of China
By JAMES T. AREDDY (Wall Street Journal)
Updated: 2006-03-31 17:08

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB114374984648312629-A0F_dVhGloFXto
F8doVDS_kg_0k_20060406,00.html?mod=regionallinks

GANYAO, China -- A solar-power revolution is being staged on China's
rooftops.

But instead of harnessing the sun to generate electricity, China has
quickly emerged as the world leader in using solar power for a more
mundane task -- providing hot water for showers and washing dishes in
dwellings that often have no other source of heat the year round.

The low-frills, low-cost technology isn't suitable for heating rooms or
houses but is fueling a boom in solar power in China's poor countryside
as well as its modernizing urban centers. Already, China claims an
estimated 30 million solar households, or nearly 60% of the solar
capacity installed in the world, according to Worldwatch Institute, a
Washington, D.C., environmental group.

In Ganyao, a village in eastern Zhejiang Province, bathing used to mean a
dip in the local creek or a trip to a communal bathhouse, says
55-year-old Hu Xingying. But for $145 three years ago, Ms. Hu bolted a
sleek contraption of glass tubes linked to a green water tank onto the
tiled roof of her farmhouse and now enjoys hot showers inside. "We can
afford to use it," she says.

Now, China's solar industry is turning its sights on the U.S., hoping
that soaring energy costs and a new tax credit for solar-energy usage
from the Bush administration will spur Americans to consider cheap solar
power for their swimming pools, showers and dishwashers. As part of the
2005 Energy Policy Act, U.S. consumers can receive a 30% tax credit, up
to $2,000, on the cost of qualifying solar systems installed before the
end of 2007.

Michael Humphreys, co-owner of Apricus Solar Co., based in the Chinese
city of Nanjing, sees an "extremely big change" in U.S. demand. He
shipped nearly four times as many containers of equipment to the U.S.
last year than in 2004, and business may triple this year, he says.

Increasingly, the average Chinese household views a solar water heater as
a standard appliance, right after a washing machine on the list of
priorities. The units are relatively affordable because of cheap
materials, low labor costs and intense competition among an array of
Chinese solar companies.

Of course, solar can be a fickle heating source. A day of sunshine is
needed to warm a day's water need, so clouds rule out the next day's hot
shower. Thick air pollution in China's urban areas can lengthen the time
it takes to warm water.

And there is nothing pretty about the way cheap solar collectors are
fixed onto Chinese roofs. Big apartment complexes are topped with a
mishmash of A-shaped devices, since each household has its own. Water
lines dangle unceremoniously down the building's side and into apartments.

Heating water by sunshine -- a process known as solar thermal -- is a
low-tech sister to the related method of using the sun to make
electricity, called photovoltaic power generation. "It's a lot more sexy
to produce electricity than hot water," says Keith Winston, owner of
Earth Sun Energy Systems, Hyattsville, Md., which has imported thermal
equipment from China for the past year. "But the reality is, solar
thermal is far more cost-effective right now."

China's government has encouraged adoption of solar technology. Cities
like Shanghai have written stricter energy-efficiency requirements into
building codes, for example. At this month's National People's Congress,
Premier Wen Jiabao cited solar as an alternative to fossil fuels as he
pledged that the country would cut energy use by 20% as a percentage of
gross domestic product over the next five years.

As it is, household heat is denied to many Chinese. In winter, the
government provides heat only half the year and only in the northern half
of China. It provides none in the south. And everywhere, arranging for
hot water is the individual's responsibility.

The country's embrace of thermal solar technology stands in stark
contrast to the country's poor environmental record overall. The
country's own sudden appetite for fuel has driven global energy costs to
records, making alternative power sources more palatable.

China is home to hundreds of companies that increasingly dominate the
manufacturing of the heart of the solar hot-water system:
sunlight-absorbing evacuated thermal tubes. Resembling fat, black
florescent lightbulbs, the tubes cost as little as $110-$125 a square
meter (10.764 square feet) to make and install in China, a fraction of
going prices elsewhere of $800 to $1,000, says Eric Martinot, a visiting
Tsinghua University professor who prepared the Worldwatch report.

In the more technically complex photovoltaic solar-panel business,
Chinese companies have also made inroads. Among the world's top 10
solar-cell producers is Suntech Power Holdings Co. of Wuxi, China, which
is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The global giants in the
photovoltaic business, like General Electric Co. and BP PLC, aren't
active in solar-thermal equipment.

Apricus, a closely held Sino-Australian joint venture, is one of only two
China-based companies that produce solar-thermal equipment eligible for
the U.S. tax credits, according to the Florida-based Solar Rating &
Certification Corp.

Li Wei, vice general manager of Beijing Sunda Solar Energy Technology
Co., the other certified company, says the tax credit has helped U.S.
sales, although sales to Europe remain higher.

Yet, the solar thermal industry's growth remains strongest in China. In
the rugged east coast province of Zhejiang, the penetration of solar is
hard to miss. Colorful lean-tos, the size of compact cars, sit atop most
apartment buildings and farmhouses.

The trend reflects how a relatively poor country has found an economical
route to higher living standards, such as daily showers. "Around Qiandao
Lake about 95% of homes have one," says Hong Yongping, owner of Chunan
Meidadianqi Co., an appliance retailer in the area.

In fact, free solar power may be worsening water wastage and pollution,
already big environmental problems in China. As Ms. Hu notes, "We don't
care much about how much water we use now."

At Ms. Hu's farmhouse in Zhejiang province, the glass-and-steel solar
device set on her black tiled roof is fed by an orange tube that runs
from the ground-level water main, through a duck corral and up the length
of her front wall. But environmental benefits and aesthetic value aren't
her chief concern. "There's no relationship," says Ms. Hu. "It's cheap
and convenient."

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