Austria

A major order for two Austrian companies was announced at a press conference in the middle of August: Austrian engineering company Solid - represented by its two CEOs Christian Holter (middle) and Franz Radovic (right) - signed a contract with the United World College of South East Asia (UWCSEA) to deliver, install and operate a solar heating and cooling installation with 3,900 m² of collector area in Singapore. The Raiffeisen-Landesbank of Steiermark (RLB-Stmk) will be responsible for financing the investment of around EUR 4 million together with the OeKB, the Oesterreichische Kontrollbank.
Photo: Solid

Austrian OEM collector manufacturer Greenonetec runs four robots at its new assembly line for tray collectors supported by seven workers. With a cycle time of around one minute, the highly automated production line is one of the fastest in the world.
Photo: Greenonetec

The first international conference dedicated exclusively to solar process heat will take place in Wels, Austria, from 3 to 4 March 2011 as part of the World Sustainable Energy Days. It is organised by the O.Oe. Energiesparverband, the regional energy agency of Upper Austria, which is also the coordinator of the Intelligent Energy Europe project "Solar Process Heat" (So-Pro).
Photo: So-Pro.

Products turn out big at Kioto Clear Energy: Sales and Marketing Director Marlon Rechberger (left) and General Manager Klaus Maier present a laser-welded absorber produced by the newly purchased laser-welding machine. 
Photo: Kioto Clear Energy

Start of a new cooperation: Bill Vallett, Jr., President of Lochinvar (left) and Robin Welling, Managing Director of Tisun, presented their new brand Lochinvar/Tisun at the AHR Expo in Orlando, Florida, in spring this year.
Photo: Tisun

The World Sustainable Energy Days, a large annual conference in this field in Europe, offer from 2^nd to 4^th March 2011 the combination of events on sustainable energy production and use, covering energy efficiency and renewable energy sources for buildings, industry and transport.

Three partners, one project: Representatives from all three participating companies - Millennium Energy Industries, Jordan, and Greenonetec and AEE Intec, both based in Austria - met for their kick-off meeting at the collector factory of Greenonetec.
Photo: Greenonetec

The present report was prepared in the framework of the RES-H Policy project (Policy development for improving RES-H/C penetration in European Member States (RES-H Policy)). The aim is to provide an overview of possible policy instruments to support the development of renewable heating (RES-H) and cooling (RES-C) technologies in the different EU Member States.

Austria shows that even in a generally difficult economic situation, a government can still expand its solar subsidy schemes: On 11 June, the Austrian environmental minister, Niki Berlakovich, introduced a new incentive programme for large-scale solar thermal systems. Photo: National Austrian Environmental Ministry

While solar heat for domestic and service applications has increasing market shares across Europe, solar process heat is still in its infancy. The potential is enormous: about 30% of the total industrial heat demand is at temperature levels below 100°C which can be provided from commercially available solar thermal collectors.