SMEThermal

After the Group's new vacuum tube titanium coating has proven itself on the Chinese market for the past year, Linuo Solar Thermal is thinking about introducing the product also on international markets. One of the biggest manufacturers of vacuum tubes in China has so far used an aluminium-based coating for all its products. The new coating of the Sunrain group - presented at the company´s 10-year anniversary in December 2010 – is said to be based on titanium as well.
Photo: Linuo Group

The international conference SMEThermal is held in Berlin on 7 February 2012 already for the third time. The one-day event deals explicitly with process optimization, automation and new materials in the tank and collector industry. SMEThermal 2011 was a great success. 160 decision makers from 22 different countries met in Berlin to discuss the latest trends and technical challenges in the industry.

“Competition on price” was one of the key questions of the panel discussion at the international conference SMEthermal 2011 in Berlin on 10 February. Representatives from the major solar thermal markets worldwide discussed the challenges of the world market among them (left to right): Hakan Alas, General Manager, Ezinç Metal (Turkey), Michael Hsu, CEO, Sunshore Solar Energy – Business Development Central Europe (Austria/China) and Lucio Mesquita, Managing Director, Thermosol Consulting (Canada/Brazil). SMEthermal is an annual one-day conference dedicated exclusively to manufacturing of collectors and tanks, new materials and process optimisation. There were 160 participants from 22 different at the event.
Photo: Solarpraxis AG / Therese Aufschlager

In Europe, only a few conferences focus exclusively on solar heating and cooling in 2011. Most events combine both solar thermal technology and photovoltaics, with two-thirds of the schedule being reserved for solar electricity and only one third for solar thermal. Please check the event calendar for more information about these events. The few events in 2011 that deal only with solar heating and cooling (and have been included in the event calendar, too) are listed in the following:

The 1^st SMEThermal in March 2010 exceeded the expectations: As the first of its kind to be dedicated exclusively to materials and equipment used in manufacturing solar thermal tanks and collectors, it attracted 150 key industry players from 20 different countries.
Photo: Solarpraxis