There's a cool, space-age contraption on the roof, with 20 parallel tubes of impact-resistant shiny glass, angling upward into a silver tank set on its side. The tank's green-and-red logo reads in large type 'Sunbank: www.thesunbank.com.";

Welcome to a new-old way to heat the water in your business or home, save money and vote for renewable energy, in one fell swoop: the rooftop solar water heater.

"That's the most efficient solar collector in the world," said Richards, gazing up at his contrivance.

Whether that superlative is indeed the case, the gleaming tubes are certainly some major league sun catchers. The rooftop unit is a prototype, a real-world proof-of-concept, which helped pave the way for the launch of Sunbank earlier this month.

"In a sense, this is kind of a new technology to the U.S," said Richards. "It's on every rooftop in China for the last 30 years. And they're all over Europe and the Middle East and Latin America. But they're just kind of coming here now."

Richards hopes to bring solar water not just to West Virginia but to customers nationwide. His timing is good.

Lester Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute and Earth Policy Institute, noted in his 2009 book, "Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization" that until recently solar water was a niche market for heating pools in America, even as it has grown by leaps and bounds abroad.

"China ... is now home to 27 million rooftop solar water heaters. With nearly 4,000 Chinese companies manufacturing these devices, this relatively simple low-cost technology has leapfrogged into villages that do not yet have electricity. For as little as $200, villagers can have a rooftop solar collector installed and take their first hot shower."

And in Europe, where energy costs are relatively high, rooftop solar water heaters are spreading fast, Brown notes:

"The huge projected expansion in solar water and space heating in industrial countries could close some existing coal-fired power plants and reduce natural gas use, as solar water heaters replace electric and gas water heaters. In countries such as China and India, however, solar water heaters will simply reduce the need for new coal-fired power plants."

Aptly enough for a new business that hopes to be part of this global expansion, the seed for Sunbank was planted internationally. The idea first took root along the isolated Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua, was nurtured inside Chinese factories, then brought to fruition by networking and lots of legwork on the Web here in West Virginia.

Sunbank also speaks to entrepreneurial possibilities in an interlinked world, eager for fresh ideas to cut ravenous energy consumption and rising energy bills. "It's kind of a new landscape for small business to do big things on small budgets," said Richards.

Solar water seeds

The 28-year-old Richards, a Charleston native who studied economics at Vanderbilt, worked and traveled widely after college, "working for different causes."

"Most recently, I was working in Nicaragua for a group called Blue Energy that does small-scale solar and wind projects on the east coast of Nicaragua, which is one of the most remote places in the Western Hemisphere," he said.

"We would take a speedboat sometimes for eight hours along the ocean and up rivers to get to these really isolated communities where we would be installing solar and giving them light for the first time. A pretty fascinating experience."

With a little down time, plus "a lot of PVC piping and some homemade elbow grease," Richards and friends built a solar water heater on the roof of a building. "So, I started doing some research, which culminated in a trip to some Chinese factories this past February."

What Richards settled on was a well-established solar water heater concept, based on a 30-year-old evacuated tube design that came out of a Beijing university. "I did a couple tweaks to the design to make it my own," he said.

A few weeks ago, several dozen Sunbank units shipped across the Pacific Ocean, steamed through the Panama Canal and came to rest in the South Hills of Charleston.

You can learn about the technology in more depth on Sunbank's website (also, see the companion Gazette video above for a look at how the device works). But the layered glass vacuum tubes are the soul of the concept, said Richards, "absorbing 96 percent of the sunlight hitting the tubes and turning it into heat in the water tank."

Getting back to it

Solar power has had its ups and down in America.

It is not well-recalled, but in the 1920s and '30s America was a world leader in solar water, a tale told in "A Golden Thread: 2500 years of Solar Architecture and Technology," by John Perlin and Ken Butti. A solar water heater called the Climax was advertised widely after its debut in the early '20s.

"There was huge installed capacity in L.A. and Miami -- even in Baltimore," said Richards.

The whole industry foundered when, among other reasons, gas got really cheap.

"Then it came back in the '70s when fuel prices were going through the roof -- solar water and solar panels, for that matter became the next big thing,"  he said.  "The Carter administration was helping with subsidies. Then, Reagan came into office in 1980 and cut all those subsidies -- and basically killed the industry."

Right now, "we're getting back to it," he added. "Fuel prices are high enough -- and they're only going to go up. West Virginia in the last year has had a 19 percent increase in electricity prices -- and AEP is asking for more."

America is playing catch up when it comes to solar water heaters, with Hawaii leading the way. A law that took effect Jan. 1, 2010, requires all new single-family homes to be equipped with solar water heaters, making Hawaii the first state in the nation to approve a solar water mandate.

Israeli rooftops have long been dotted with solar water heaters, first installed when a fuel supply crisis struck in the early 1950s, according to a July 2008 article by Justin Thomas in the blog "Metaefficient: A Guide to Highly Efficient Things":

"The government responded by severely restricting the times when water could be heated. Israelis in turn responded by purchasing huge quantities of solar water heaters.  ... A law was eventually passed requiring the installation of solar water heaters. In 2005, Spain became the second country to require solar water heaters."

Nowadays, Thomas writes, 90 percent of Israeli homes use solar water and  "viewed from above, Jerusalem often glitters with the shine of the thousands of solar heaters that adorn rooftops."

Richards looked at other designs for heating water via the sun. A "split system" puts the solar collectors on the roof and the tank in the basement. Glycol is used as a heat-transfer fluid and a pump circulates it.

But such units can cost about $8,000, whereas a 40-gallon Sunbank costs $1,499, with an extra several hundred dollars for the cost of installation and materials -- and even less, for do-it-yourselfers. (The cost of a Sunbank will go up in 2012, Richards noted.)

The return on investment is much quicker with such a unit. It can pay for itself in several years, after which you're saving money with the sun pre-heating your water, he said.

As an experiment, the prototype unit on his South Hills roof handled all the house's hot water usage in June for three people, he said. "And we just got back our electricity bill which was like a treasure trove for me.

"I compared June of this year to June of last year and we used about 34 percent less electricity. That saved $35 in June off the electricity bill. So, if you extrapolate that to 12 months that's a pretty significant savings."

But flipping off the current water heater in your business or home is not how Richards advocates using the Sunbank unit best. Instead, the rooftop unit is plumbed into your existing water heater.

"It'll feed your existing water heater with hot water and your water heater won't turn on because it has a thermostat inside of it and it registers what the temperature of the water is. And it just passes it through to the house."

So, water just as hot as before comes out your shower or faucet, but it has been pre-heated on the roof. Your electricity bill goes down because the water heater doesn't kick on since the water coming into it is already hot enough, he said.

"Your water heater's still there and ready to operate. It'll just augment whatever's left. Even in cloudy weather, by the way, those evacuated tubes absorb sunlight and do work."

As the sun shines

Sunbank units are suitable for any residence and would be especially apt for people in rural locales who live off the grid or away from power lines, he said.

But Richards' main marketing thrust will be to attract businesses that use a lot of hot water. Sunbanks can handle increased loads as each 40-gallon tank can be hooked with other units -- making, for instance, an 80-, 120-gallon or more system.

A second of his prototypes is now being used by a restaurant and inn, the Grist Mill in Warm Springs, Va.

"So, think Laundromats, hospitals, hotels, restaurants. There are a lot of businesses that are really hot-water intensive. The average home uses 20 to 30 percent of their energy to heat water. But some businesses use way over 50 percent -- breweries, agriculture. There are a lot of examples."

Homeowners can run the numbers themselves, he said. "Residential, it's the best investment you can make, bar none. It's guaranteed as long as the sun shines -- and if it doesn't shine, we're all in the same boat."

"Solar water" also is a hedge against ever-rising fuel costs for people looking with dismay at their fuel bills and wondering about renewable energy, said Richards.

An article on "The Economics of a Solar Water Heater" at the U.S. Department of Energy website, is more specific as to savings: "On average, if you install a solar water heater, your water heating bills should drop 50 to 80 percent. Also, because the sun is free, you're protected from future fuel shortages and price hikes. "

And while it took a trip to China to jump-start Sunbank, if customers warm to the idea of solar water heaters in enough numbers, Richards sees no reason why the parts that constitute the Sunbank couldn't be fabricated in the Mountain State.

"I would like ultimately to set up a factory in the U.S. And West Virginia would be a great place to do that. We have all the necessary components to build these. We have the ability to make glass -- we have expert glassmakers in Milton at Blenko. We have metal works up in the Northern Panhandle where we make the copper heat pipes. Other than that, it's stainless steel, which is also up in the Northern Panhandle.

"It's just a matter of having this technology catch on first so it's a viable business," he said.  "From there, manufacturing it at home would be great."

Reach Douglas Imbrogno at doug...@cnpapers.com or 304-348-3017.