Japan

• IEA Study "Solar Heat Worldwide": Global Market Growth of 22 % in 2006-

  2006 was an extremely satisfying year for the global solar thermal industry. According to the new study “Solar Heat Worldwide. Markets and contribution to the Energy Supply 2006” on behalf of IEA Solar Heating & Cooling Programme the new installations grew 22 % in 2006. The authors from the Austrian research institute AEE Intec surveyed 48 countries and added up the newly installed collector area to 18.3 GWth (26.1 million m2).

• Japan: Tsunami Victims receive Solar Water Heaters-

  Japanese solar water heater manufacturer Chiryu Heater has equipped 110 new houses for the victims of the tsunami in the small town of Sumita. The beneficiary survived the Tsunami in the costal town of Rikuzentakata, 18 km south of Sumita. Rikuzentakata was one of the towns at Japan's north-east coast that was almost completely destroyed in March this year.
  Photo: Chiryu

• Solar Cooling Market to experience big Changes-

  According to Dr Uli Jakob, Vice President of the “Green Chiller - Association for Sorption Cooling”, the solar cooling sector may soon experience a shift from small series production of a niche market to considerable manufacturing quantities. Jakob points out two signs supporting such a development: First, the approval of the IEA-SHC task 48, “Quality Assurance and Support Measures for Solar Cooling“; second, the recent market entry of big players, such as Stiebel Eltron (Germany) and Hitachi (Japan).
  Photo: Bärbel Epp

• Solar Thermal Policy and Market in Japan (2007)-

  This presentation looks into the market situation in Japan and touches upon the weaknesses in the policy framework which negatively impacted the development of the solar thermal market.

  Following the peak of 1980, the solar hot water market went in a steep decline. A decrease in oil price, a badly designed policy and the weak competitiveness of the industry are listed as the chief reasons for this downturn.

• Ventilation Performance of Solar Chimney with Built-in Latent Heat Storage (2006)-

  This document was prepared by two researchers from the Osaka University, Department of Architectural Engineering. It describes the prototype solar chimney with PCM (Phase Change Material) storage, together with a numerical model for predicting air flow rate in a solar chimney and temperature of aluminum plate, air and PCM.

• India: Huge Effect of Print Media Publicity on Market Development -

  The last 5 years have seen a strong growth in India's solar thermal market. While adverts in television, the radio, as well as the print media are all very popular forms of raising public awareness in India, thanks to the growing literacy rate, newspaper advertisement was found to be the most effective channel to disseminate information about the solar thermal sector. Some states, such as Maharashtra, put up advert hoardings at prominent places in large cities. The poster seen in the photo lists the registered manufacturers, including their contact number.
  Photo: Jaideep Malaviya

• Czech Republic: Political Discussions about Subsidy Scheme Problems-

  The Czech subsidy programme Zelena Usporam (Green Savings) is missing between Czech Koruny (CZK) 3 to 5 billion in order to satisfy all the applications already submitted (see news). The current Minister of the Environment, Tomáš Chalupa (left), blamed the founders of Zelena Usporam, saying that the subsidy programme had been steadily facing problems since the very beginning. In response, Martin Bursík (right), the former Minister of the Environment and one of the founders of Zelena Usporam, criticised the current administration of the subsidy programme for having stopped the programme too late - most probably for political reasons. According to Zelena Usporam, it is going to take another few weeks until all of the applications are processed. Until then, no further information will be available on the future of the programme.
  Photos: www.radio.cz / www.ct24.cz

• Solar Thermal System in Buildings in Japan (2008)-

  This presentation was made by Mr Mitsuhiro Udagawa, Professor at the Kogakuin University in Tokyo, Japan, during the Asian Workshop on Energy and Environmental Technologies which took place in 2008. The presentation includes many visuals showing the evolution of solar thermal system installations in households and other buildings in Japan over the years (1974, 1985, 1999). It is possible to see the evolution of both technology and design.

• Canada: Retirement Home Solar Cooling -

  162 vacuum tube collector panels supplying the Oxford Gardens Retirement Village with domestic hot water, a warm water pool, space heating in winter and cooling in summer: According to project leader Suni Ball of Canadian solar system provider Proterra Solar, the system is the largest solar cooling installation in the country. Over 80 guests came to its inauguration in November 2010.
  Photo: Oxford Gardens

• Czech Republic: Emission Trading Revenues extend Incentive Programme -

  Signed in July by Rut Bizkova, the Czech Republic's Environment Minister, and Yasuhiro Shimizu, Japanese Executive Director of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, the new supplement to an emission trading contract leads to improvements in the Green Savings Programme.

• Japan: Government supports Leasing Programme for Residential Systems-

  Programme to accelerate dissemination of residential solar thermal systems in Japan: Residential, pumped solar water heating systems are eligible for a rebate of a maximum of 50 % of the investment costs, including installation and more than 6 years of warranty.
  Photo: Presentation by Masao Kabaya at Intersolar Europe

• Combined Solar Power and Desalination Plants: Update on the MED-CSD Project (2009)-

  This presentation from 2009 provides an update of the MED-CSD project. The main aim of this project is the assessment of the technico-economic potential of CSP for electricity and desalination in the Mediterranean region. The presentation first gives a global overview by linking the regions suffering from water scarcity with the global potential for concentrating solar power.

• Renewables for Heating and Cooling (2007)- This document, prepared by the International Energy Agency, comes as a follow-up of the 2006 seminar “Renewable heating and cooling – from RD&D to deployment technology and policy” aimed at exploring guidelines and policy initiatives to boost technology development and market deployment for renewable heating and cooling (REHC).
• Which are the major solar thermal markets worldwide?-

  By far the largest solar thermal market in the world according to newly installed solar thermal capacity per year is China. In 2008, around 21 GW_th (30 million m²) were sold in China, which was around 80 % of the world global solar thermal market.

• Solar Heating Worldwide (2005)- This report from 2005, published by Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (SHC) of the International Energy Agency (IEA) relates the solar thermal capacity previously installed in important markets worldwide. It further reports the contribution of solar plants to the supply of energy and the CO2 emissions reduction, resulting from operating these plants.
• Japan: A “Boom and Bust“ Solar Thermal Market-

  Japan was once leading in the solar water heater market. Although being one of the first countries to have solar water heaters installed in 1950, the solar water heater industry has decreased steadily since the 1980’s. In 2007, the country reached a new low with 188,500 m² of newly installed collector area – not even a tenth of the market volume of 2.8 million m² it had in the peak year 1980.

• Green Chiller: Promoting Solar Air Conditioning-

  Cooling with the sun: This retirement home in Kalkara, Malta, is conditioned by a chillii Solar Cooling Kit PSC10 (10 kW cooling capacity). 38 m² flat plate collectors are used to generate the heat for the ammonia/water absorption chiller.
  Photo: SolarNext
  

• Solar Cooling: The Time is Ripe for Small-Scale Devices-

  Solar cooling system at Bachler Austria: 40 m² of flat-plate collectors drive an absorption chiller of the type Chillii PSC10 Photo: Solarnext

• International Technology Collaboration and Climate Change Mitigation - Case Study 1: CSP technologies (2004)-

  This case study from 2004 was prepared by the OECD and IEA secretariats and reviews past and current experiences in international collaboration in the field of CSP technologies. In addition to identifying the success stories and the failures of CSP related international collaboration, the case study also lists four important lessons:

  1) International collaboration may help, but domestic policy decisions remain decisive

  2) In technology transfer non-financial barriers must not be underestimated

• Tokyo: No solar obligation in the Green Building Program -

  Europeans often quote Japan as one of the around 15 countries worldwide, which have approved some sort of solar or renewable building code. This statement, however, is missing serious proof.
  

• Chiryu Heater: 46 Years of Collector Manufacturing in Japan-

  Second oldest collector manufacturer worldwide: the Japanese company Chiryu Heater which is run by Yasuo Okamoto. He told solarthermalworld.org the history of the company that his father Ei-ichi Okamoto founded in 1944.
  Photo: Bärbel Epp

• Tokyo: Green Power Certification System Pushes Solar Thermal -

  Japanese apartment house with flat plate collectors in the balcony: Is this the solar thermal future of Tokyo? In the next two years the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office (TMG) wants to implement 40,000 solar thermal and photovoltaic plants. Photo: Chiryu Heater

• Tokyo Gas launches balcony-integrated Collector-

  Japan´s large natural gas company, Tokyo Gas, started producing a collector panel that can be integrated into balconies. The low-cost system is a combination of solar panels and a gas water heater. Photo: Tokyo Gas