Air Heating

Since December 2011, a total of 81 solar air collectors by German manufacturer Grammer Solar have supplied the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin with sun-heated air. The air collector system is part of an energy savings contract that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has drawn up together with the German Energy Agency (dena) and the energy efficient building specialists of YIT Germany GmbH in 2011. The overall aim is to save more than EUR 600,000 in operation costs and around 1,780 tons of CO₂ emissions per year.
Photo: Grammer Solar

The paper was presented by Mr. Jacques Bony and Mr. Stéphane Citherlet from the Laboratory of Solar Energetics and Buildings Physics (Switzerland) in the framework of Task 44 of the IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programme. It presents the energy and economic performances of facilities coupling heat pumps with air heater equipped with solar thermal collectors. The study was done employing a TRNSYS-type dynamic simulation.

This is a paper presented by a group of German researchers during EUROSUN 2008 International Congress on Heating, Cooling and Buildings held in Lisbon, Portugal. Addressing the use of heat pump systems with boreholes together with solar thermal collectors, their project - „Unglazed Solar Collectors in Heat Pump Systems: System Concept and Dimensioning” – is linked with Task 44 of the International Energy Agency’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme.

The target of the present paper is to give an overview on commercially available Solar Thermal and Heat Pump Systems (SAHPS) and a review on available monitoring results of these integrated systems. It is the fruit of the research of German, Italian and Austrian specialists in the framework of IEA’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme.

This paper offers a format for commercial enterprises to make a financial analysis of a possible investment in solar thermal space heating and cooling for their commercial building. It was created and written by Tommy Cleveland et. al. of the North Carolina Solar Center.

The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change commissioned this report to the consultancy AEA Technology.

The report analyses the technical costs of four heating technologies: air source heat pumps (ASHP); ground source heat pumps (GSHP); solar thermal and biomass.

The objective is to better understand these technologies in order to prepare the review process of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme. The Renewable Heat Incentive went live in 2010 and it should be reviewed every four years.

This paper is a step-by-step instruction manual on how to make your own direct-air solar thermal collector for any small room or facility.

Utilizing the basic physics of heat collection and integrating affordable materials, this brief can be used by any do-it-yourselfer who is interested in cutting back on heating costs. Photos are provided to give the reader a visual guide to the process and to explain the physics of how solar thermal works. This can be used as a tool to raise awareness for people who may not be completely convinced of solar thermal’s capabilities.

This is a presentation delivered by Enerplan during the “Setting up the Right Incentives to Boost Solar Thermal in Europe” webinar organized on November 30, 2010, within the framework of ProSTO project, funded through the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme.

At the end of October, Canadian air collector manufacturer Matrix Energy Inc won its patent infringement case against Conserval Engineering, Canada, a case that lasted for several years. According to a press release by Matrix Energy from the beginning of November, the Federal Court of Canada concluded that the defendant, “…did not infringe Conserval Engineering’s Canadian Patent No 1,326,619 … by making, designing and selling its own MatrixAir system”.
Photo: Matrix Energy Inc

This is a deliverable of the European Commission’s Altener Solar Combisystem Project, related to the IEA Task 26. The programme ran between 2001 and 2003, involving Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and The Netherlands.