Standards , Certification

Solar Keymark is a very broadly accepted label on the European solar thermal market. More than 1,000 collector certificates have been issued since the introduction of the certification system in 2003.
Source: www.solarkeymark.org

This report was from the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) Annual Meeting in October, 2009. The report is broken down to cover state incentives & policy trends, solar installation trends, net metering & interconnection updates & trends, and workforce development and training.

The Indian government is thinking about the implementation of a kind of “star label” for solar water heaters. The institution responsible for the national Standards & Labelling Programme scheme is the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE). The national solar industry, however, has some reservations about this plan.
Source: www.bee-india.nic.in

This report was prepared by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) in 2007. It gives an overview on the status of all solar energy and the future of it in the US.

This short document, produced by the International Energy Agency, provides a summary of the solar heating and cooling situation in 2009.

The document is divided in different sections: market status; economics; outlook; system related aspects; environmental impact; technology status development; which touch upon different issues ranging from the installed capacity, to solar resources of different countries, drivers and barriers for growth, etc.

This Code of Practice was published by the New Zealand Solar Industries Association (SIA) to provide guidance to manufacturers, suppliers, and purchasers of solar hot water systems on manufacturing and installation standards to be observed in New Zealand, especially for household installations.

This is a report prepared by the Minnesota Department of Commerce Office of Energy Security (OES) to the Legislature. It focuses on solar thermal technologies for domestic hot water and space heating. This legislation came about from concerns that the nationally recognized solar thermal certification organization, Solar Rating and Certification Corporation (SRCC), process was inadequately serving Minnesota’s solar thermal industry.

This document from 2008 summarises the European funded Solar Combi+ project which aims to support the market introduction of small scale cooling systems in combination with traditional solar thermal systems for domestic hot water and space heating. The small-scale applications are targeted for use in residential, catering, small commercial and office buildings surroundings with a cooling demand of 20kW.

The Italian National Observatory on Energy Saving Building Regulations (ONRE) released this report in 2009 in co-operation with Legambiente and CRESME. European Directives like the RES 2020 or the energy efficiency in buildings have pushed local authorities to create new legislation to comply with the different targets set in the directives.

Albanian's solar thermal testing centre: inaugurated in September 2008, managed by the Harry Fultz Institute in Tirana and financed by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Photo: www.entwicklung.at