Japan

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.