solar hot water in... Cyprus

Turgut, a fellow member of the Weavers Way Environment Committee, wrote in from Cyprus, where he's visiting family right now. Solar hot water is very commonplace in Cyprus. According to some stats he shared from here, at the beginning of 1999:

• Approximately 92% of the households and 50% of the hotels in Cyprus had solar water heating systems.
  
• Cyprus is one of the leading countries in terms of installed solar collectors per capita, with 0.86 square meters (9.25 sf) of solar collectors per capita. Just for comparison, we're installing 40sf this week.
  
• The estimated current area of installed solar collectors in Cyprus is 600 square meters (6400 sf), and the solar thermal-energy production is 336,000 MW/year.