Potential energy saving in urban and rural households of Mexico by use of solar water heaters, using geographical information system

This paper presents for the first time an analysis of energy savings by implementing solar water heaters (SWH) in urban and rural households in Mexico using a geographical information system (GIS); the maps of average solar radiation, energy consumption and energy savings are presented. Information of assigned to 187,719 and 4,525 locations urban and rural respectively; official data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico (INEGI) is used and among the main results, they show that each year Mexico could save 53.66 PJ which is 51% of annual consumption of households use of LPG for heating water, which would represent to avoid the emission of 3.74 Tg CO2 to the environment.