By ignoring the second half of their comment you’ve missed the subtly that “panel” is an overly broad term and there are several different kinds of panels that collect energy from the sun for human use, among them photovoltaics, panels for heating residential water (often seen as black roof panels with pipes), and complex mirror (aka reflective panels) arrangements for melting salts. All of them use panels in some form.
Because I think the graphic missed the parts about the MC4 cables & the solar charge controller & the Lithium battery & the power inverter, a few little details like that.
There are literally some kinds of solar panel to generate heated water for things like home use.
They’re just boxes painted in black with a pipe with water also painted in black zigzagging inside of it, rather than being photovoltaic panels.
Were I live now - Portugal - something like that works fine even in Winter to generate hot water for things like showering.
That said even during the Summer something like that won’t generate steam (or at least, not with enough steam pressure to drive a turbine), unlike what the meme shows, though there are solar power concentrators that use sunlight to melt salt which then boils water to generate steam for a steam turbine, but those use a ton of mirrors to concentrate sunlight into a central tower were the salt is being melted. (For example).
Where is the shitpost, solar panels do work by heating up water, unlike photovoltaics.
Solar panels are good to get a baseline amount of heated water for your home.
Solar panels do not, solar thermal conversion does, but they use mirrors.
By ignoring the second half of their comment you’ve missed the subtly that “panel” is an overly broad term and there are several different kinds of panels that collect energy from the sun for human use, among them photovoltaics, panels for heating residential water (often seen as black roof panels with pipes), and complex mirror (aka reflective panels) arrangements for melting salts. All of them use panels in some form.
My cousin (not Vinny) has solar panels to heat his water to like 50 C all year long.
And also photovoltaics for electricity.
There are also combo units that’s solar and PV in one, supposedly the water cooling down the PV panels should help keep it at optimal temperatures
I’ve seen non-photovoltaic solar panels for heating pools as well which is just a coiled black hose on a black panel.
Around here a bunch of people used to have a summer shower setup, which was just a black barrel filled with water up high
Because I think the graphic missed the parts about the MC4 cables & the solar charge controller & the Lithium battery & the power inverter, a few little details like that.
There are literally some kinds of solar panel to generate heated water for things like home use.
They’re just boxes painted in black with a pipe with water also painted in black zigzagging inside of it, rather than being photovoltaic panels.
Were I live now - Portugal - something like that works fine even in Winter to generate hot water for things like showering.
That said even during the Summer something like that won’t generate steam (or at least, not with enough steam pressure to drive a turbine), unlike what the meme shows, though there are solar power concentrators that use sunlight to melt salt which then boils water to generate steam for a steam turbine, but those use a ton of mirrors to concentrate sunlight into a central tower were the salt is being melted. (For example).
That would be for photovoltaics not solar, no?