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The Advanced Building Systems Integration Consortium (ABSIC) is an industry-university partnership aimed at researching on possibilities to improve building and systems' efficiency.

This presentation goes through a specific project with a twofold objective: design a more efficient solar thermal system and improve the efficiency of existing systems, based on a given building heating and cooling demands.

Results showed that the performance of the systems can be improved up to 27% in winter (around 3MWh) and 49.2% in summer (around 7MWh).

This report was released in 2010, but provides an overview and tables with historical data from 1999-2008. It was prepared by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and it gives a summary of total shipments and manufacturing trends in 2008 in the U.S.

In 2008, active manufacturers and importers rose from 60 to 74, and almost 17 million square feet of solar thermal collectors were shipped. This was also on the rise from 15.2 million square feet in 2007.

The Solar Energy Centre (SEC) in Haryana State is a research institution, whose building design alone is a demonstration of how to use solar energy effectively. Soon, it will also receive a testing facility for solar thermal power.
Source: http://www.altenergymag.com/

The New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) and Building Research commissioned BRANZ to undertake an independent research study on the quality of solar water heaters in New Zealand, in terms of installation quality, energy performance and durability.

Conclusions of the study point out that in terms of quality, the systems analysed are very diverse, which denotes that there is still some issues in the application of standard practices.

This document produced by the Taxation Department of the State of Hawaii explains the renewable energy technologies income tax credit, which was put in place in by the authorities in Hawaii. This incentive scheme covers solar thermal energy, wind as well as photovoltaics.

The document goes through possible questions and doubts related to this tax credit, like who can claim the credit and when, which systems are qualified and which kind of buildings these systems can be used on.

About 200,000 m² of flat plate and vacuum tube collectors were shipped throughout the US-American market in 2008, according to the annual statistics of the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The annual report was published in January 2010, four months later than announced.
Source: www.eia.doe.gov

On the 21^st of January, the Californian Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) finally approved the “California Solar Initiative (CSI) – Thermal Program”. The eight-year programme has a budget of US$ 351 million and is thought to financially assist home owners and proprietors of commercial buildings who replace natural gas or electric geysers with solar water heaters (see the final decision of CPUC attached).

This 2008 document provides an overview of the various software packages and codes that have been used to support Sandia National Laboratories’ CSP research activities. The report also looks into software programmes which have been developed by other institutions or companies.

The report looks into three CSP technologies i.e. power tower systems, linear concentrator systems and dish/engine systems. For each of the technologies, an assessment of the software is made based on a hierarchy for modeling complex systems.

Solar thermal installation in Soweto: Eskom's Renewable Energy Portfolio Manager, Cedric Worthmann, said that, “Our aim is to encourage as many South Africans as possible to move away from using electric geysers and replace them with solar heated systems instead”.
Source: www.solarheat.co.za

Thermosiphon system in Malta: Since the beginning of 2010, the incentive programme for domestic solar water heaters on the Mediterranean Island of Malta has had new frame conditions in place. The government hopes to invite a stronger response with its new scheme than it achieved with the one in 2009.