p>With the amount of sun you would get in New Mexico, direct <strong>solar thermal collectors</strong> make a lot sense, though in your case there is also an argument that can be made for powering a standard water heater (or <strong>heat pump water heater</strong> for that matter) with your <strong>PV panels</strong>. That way when there is no requirement for<strong> water heating</strong>, your system will still produce, as any power collected can either charge batteries or be fed back into the grid for credit. Since you already have a <strong>Solar PV system</strong> and the infrastructure in place, I think that is certainly worth looking into.  </p> <p>If you do go that route, you could also consider getting a water heater that runs off DC, that way there would be no loss from the inverter. </p> <p>If you do decide on a thermal solar collector in the end, we do like that <a href="/guides/3297/product-of-the-month-solar-water-heater-with-overheating-protection/" target="_blank">Vitosol Solar Thermal Panel from Viessmann</a>. Overheating is the main cause of system failures, and they have developed an excellent solution to that problem.  </p> <p>As for the <a href="/guides/2197/heat-pump-water-heater-with-exterior-compressor/" target="_blank">SANCO2 Heat pump water heater</a>, that is a fantastic piece of equipment, we looked into it a while ago but the price was still a bit prohibitive in our opinion, however, that may just have been Canadian pricing, and it was over a year ago so maybe it has come down. I've contacted the company to see if they offer it with DC, nothing back yet but I will update this when I find out. </p