durability

This is a presentation made during the Regional Workshop of Solar Thermal Water Heating that took place in Chile in June 2011. The presentation by Dr. Harald Drück from the University of Stuttgart covers the international, European and national standards available for solar thermal components and systems, testing and certification issues.

This document consists of a recommended qualification procedure based on the results of work performed on solar collector absorber surfaces within the framework of the International Energy Agency Programme on Solar Heating and Cooling.

The document explains a set of recommended short term durability tests to be used in the qualification of absorber surfaces for the intended use in single glazed flat plate solar collectors for domestic hot water production.

Author: IEA SHC Programme

Date: 2004

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, in 2009, by IDEA (Instituto para la Diversificación y Ahorro de la Energía) in collaboration with CENSOLAR (Spanish Solar Energy Training Centre), provides an overview of the minimum technical conditions to be met by solar thermal water heating systems, covering also durability, reliability and security requirements.

The purpose is to establish technical conditions to be considered during the call for subsidies regarding solar thermal installations, included in the Spanish Renewable Energy Plan for 2005-2010.