Swimming pool solar heating is a viable option to keeping your pool warm throughout the year. It relies upon the process of heating water through a series of solar panels which are exposed to sunlight, and absorb the heat. It is not based on photoelectric cells which generate electricity from sunlight, instead it's a much more direct conversion of heat in sunlight to heat in water.

The water is fed through the solar panels by the swimming pool pump. The solar panels can be installed on the roof of your house, or they can actually be installed at ground level in a bracket. The roof level panels are out of the way and not taking up any space in your garden, but the water may need a booster pump to help it fight against gravity on the way up. Either way you will need to angle your solar panels so that they face the sun correctly for your latitude. In the northern hemisphere, this means that your panels meet face to the south. In the southern hemisphere it's the other way round.

Doing this means that you get the most efficient absorption of heat during the coldest months of the year, when you need the energy most of all.

But what happens on very hot days? Does this water continue to heat up until the pool is uncomfortably hot or even dangerously hot? No, the solar system has a thermostatic controller which makes sure the temperature of the pool does not go too high. When the temperature is just right, the water is no longer diverted through the panels, so no extra heat is added to the pool. Alternately, you could transfer the water to heat a water tank, which can then be used for other household needs, but this is not compulsory.

Because the sunlight is less intense during winter months, swimming pool solar heating alone is not good enough to keep your pool hot all year round. It would definitely prevent freezing, but to get pleasantly warm water in the winter months you may need to supplement your solar panels with a more traditional heater such as a gas powered heater. However, the solar powered system would definitely pay for itself because it is so much cheaper to run than the gas heater, which will only need to be used now and then.

Whichever route you used to warm your pool, you should definitely get a pool cover and use it to keep heat in when the pool is not in use. The majority of the heat that is lost from the swimming pool system is lost from the surface of the pool itself. Using a cover to conserve the heat can halve your heating bills!

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For more information concerning solar pool heaters you can have a look at this swimming pool heater site.