Sweden

The target of the present paper is to give an overview on commercially available Solar Thermal and Heat Pump Systems (SAHPS) and a review on available monitoring results of these integrated systems. It is the fruit of the research of German, Italian and Austrian specialists in the framework of IEA’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme.

The next edition of the European Solar Days – a campaign of national events aimed at promoting the use of solar energy – will be held from 1 to 13 May 2012. The initiative now includes more than 20 participants from 16 countries, who gathered on 7 and 8 November in Prague for the second European Solar Days Annual Conference. The meeting consisted of the internal project meeting with the partners and the Annual Conference, also attended by two guest countries. A total of 23 conference participants were responsible for evaluating the 2011 event and planning the 2012 campaign.
Photo: ESTIF

During the meeting in Paris in October 2011, the Solar Keymark Network has accepted an extension of the Solar Keymark Scheme Rules. In the future, Solar Keymark will be available for both solar water heater stores and concentrating solar collectors. At the same meeting, the Solar Keymark Network has approved the new Annual Collector Energy Output Calculation Tool as a standard measuring tool for all Solar Keymark certified collectors. The energy output calculated with it can from now on be found on all Solar Keymark data sheets.
Photo: Henry Rosik

The 'SDHtake-off - Solar District Heating in Europe' project is a EU-funded project (under the European Commission Programme IEE Intelligent Energy Europe)supporting the market rollout of solar district heating in Europe. It started on July 2009 and runs for a period of three years. This document is one of its deliverables, describing the development of SDH capacities in Europe as a result of the existing policies and incentives.

On 29 and 30 September, the project partners of the EU project SDHtake-off met for a workshop during the GeoThermExpo in Ferrara, Italy. “All the big players in district heating in Italy joined our meeting,” project coordinator Thomas Pauschinger from German research centre Solites says. He sees that as an indicator for the growing interest of the district heating industry in solar thermal applications. The Italian town Serrazzano (Photo) might soon have a solar district heating system.
Photo: Geo Energy Service

In Sweden, it is not uncommon to feed solar heat into district heating networks. “After a bit of persuasion, most district heating companies will agree to buy the heat, but the prices they pay for it will differ a lot,” Gunnar Lennermo says. Lennermo works as a consultant for Energianalys and helps his customers with planning and constructing large solar installations.
Source: Energianalys

A full aluminium direct-flow absorber with a newly developed coating from Finland won one of the three Solar Thermal Intersolar Awards at the Intersolar 2011 in Munich, Germany. The photo shows the respective in-line coating machine by Finnish company Savo-Solar Oy. In cooperation with the Danish company Hydro Aluminium Precision Tubing, both companies were able to impress the jury with the new developed “Savo-Solar Al-MPE” absorber. The other two prizes went to Vetter Gesellschaft für Medizinische Datentechnik, Bio- und Umwelttechnik mbH, Germany, for developing a parabolic trough collector which opens up a diverse range of installation possibilities, and to Swedish company Absolicon Solar Concentrator for a PVT collector combining solar power generation with the use of solar heat.
Photo: Savo-Solar Oy

In December 2010, the Solar Combisystems Promotion and Standardisation (CombiSol) project ended after running for three full years. The aim of the project was to expand the market development of Solar Combi Systems (SCS), which provide both space heating and domestic hot water, and to promote an improvement of the quality of systems installed. Project partners were the National Institute of Solar Energy – Education (INES Education), France, the Institute of Thermodynamics and Thermal Process Engineering (ITW) of the University of Stuttgart, Germany, French Environment and Energy Management Agency ADEME, PlanEnergi, Denmark, the Committee Renewable Energy at the Institute for Sustainable Technologies (AEE), Austria, and Dalarna University, Sweden.

Net metering solar heat: Allbohus Fastighets AB, a municipal housing company, has built a roof-integrated solar collector field of 350 m² on a multi-family building in Vislanda, Sweden, which is connected to the district heating network via a pre-fabricated sub-station. When the solar heat is greater than the building’s heat load, the building owner will be paid for the solar heat going into the heating network. When the solar energy does not cover the building’s heating demand, the building owner pays for the complementary heat delivered by the heating network.
Photo: Heat-On

The buffer tank Ecoscience by Swedish tank manufacturer Fueltech Sweden AB is the first tank to receive the P-Mark certification. After one year of testing and paper work, the P-labelling of the 520 litre tank with fresh-water station and external solar loading module was approved at the beginning of November 2010. P-Mark is a quality mark developed by SP, the Swedish National Testing and Research Institute. To receive the label, a product must fulfil requirements in four different categories: efficiency, safety, documentation and manufacturing quality.
Photo: Fueltech Sweden