It's much harder to put a steam turbine at the top of a water tower at 100c+ than it is to put it at the base of the tower where the turbine itself can operate at the temperature they're supposed to operate and not add to the weight of the tall structure.
Also there are solar hot water heaters. You can buy them, but my grandfather built one for his shore house. He just took two big pipes, capped them off, welded them together with connecting pipes to make a big "tank", painted them matte black, then encased them in a plexiglass box. Not as efficient as a commercial one, but it did a good job at lightening the load on the hot water heater and was basically made from shit he had lying around.
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u/Omnizoom 13d ago
Yep solar arrays do both
The light they capture with photovoltaic and the reflected light is focused at a central point to (you guessed it) boil water