Solar Heating and Cooling Programme

This position paper is a deliverable of the Task 38 “Solar Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration” of the IEA Solar Heating & Cooling Programme. It describes the application of active solar heating and cooling technologies within the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system of buildings in the context of increasing energy efficiency requirements.

In policy lobbying even a single sentence included in a bill is, in some cases, already a huge success. This is exactly the case for the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill that has recently passed out of the U.S. House of Representatives. “The Committee supports ongoing Solar Heating and Cooling (SHC) research and development activities within the Building Technologies Program”, is the key sentence in the report that accompanies the bill.

“A coordinated effort is needed to develop the solar thermal market in North America,” Lucio Mesquita, Head of Thermosol Consulting in Canada, said during his presentation about “Solar Cooling in North America” at the Intersolar North America in San Francisco in July.
Photo: Thermosol Consulting

The international harmonisation of norms is advancing: On behalf of operating agent Jan Erik Nielsen from Plan Energi, experts are working on the alignment of EN and ISO norms under Task 43 of the Solar Heating & Cooling Programme managed by the International Energy Agency.
Photo: ITW

Solar thermal professionals from all over the world will once again gather in Munich, Germany, to attend the international solar trade fair Intersolar 2010, which has just recently been renamed to Intersolar Europe. Its German organizer, the Solar Promotion GmbH, announced record-breaking registration figures of 1,700 exhibitors and 60,000 visitors.

At the request of the US Solar Rating & Certification Corporation (SRCC), the International Energy Agency’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (SHC) formed Task 43, the “Solar Rating and Certification Procedure”.
Photo: IEA SHC

Countries like Germany, Switzerland and France are registering an increasing interest in low energy houses, mainly single family houses (40-45 kWh/m2 per year for space heating) combined with solar heat production.