Water heating for cleaning and washing accounts for a significant amount of the energy used in commercial and institutional buildings. The OPA’s Electricity Retrofit Incentive Program (ERIP) offers incentives to replace existing electric service hot water heating equipment with alternative energy sources, including solar hot water collectors and high efficiency non-electric storage tank water heaters.

Solar hot water collector

A solar hot water collector, which has an OPA incentive of $240 per m2 of installed collector area, can be used to augment or replace existing electric storage tank water heaters. Facilities that can benefit from solar hot water heaters include car washes, hotels and motels, restaurants and laundromats. Water heating is one of the most cost-effective uses of solar energy.

Drain water heat recovery system

A $250 incentive is available when you install a drain water heat recovery system. The system uses a copper coil wrapped around a hot water drainpipe to heat water.  Drain water heat recovery systems are most cost effective in applications that use a lot of hot water, such as hair salons.

Non-electric hot water heaters

Replacement of electric storage tank water heaters with non-electric storage tank hot water heaters or non-electric tankless/instantaneous hot water heaters has an OPA incentive of $2 per thousand BTU/h.

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