International Energy Agency’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme

This report from 2008 falls within the framework of the Internal Energy Agency’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme.

The objective of this report is to undertake pre-normative research to develop a comprehensive and integrated suite of building energy analysis tool tests involving analytical, comparative, and empirical methods.

These methods will provide for quality assurance of software some of which will be enacted in specific standards to be used for certifying software used for showing compliance to building energy standards.

If solar heat likes to gain more importance in the future, it should not ignore the industrial sector. Task 33 of the International Energy Agency's (IEA) Solar Heating & Cooling programme performed an analysis of industrial energy needs and looked for the potential of solar heat within the sector. The Task’s scientists found a huge potential for energy from the sun. The industrial sector makes up about 28 % of total primary energy consumption in the European Union. A significant share of the heat used in industrial processes is used at low or medium temperatures.