Barcelona

The Barcelona Solar Thermal Ordinance has been in place since 2000. Reviewed in 2006, this piece of local legislation was pioneer for a city in Europe.

This report prepared by the Polytechnic University in Catalunya gives the reader a complete overview of the Barcelona solar thermal ordinance, created in 2000, and the role of the Barcelona City Council in this regard.

This overview, which was presented at the 2007 ESTEC conference, summarises the current status of solar thermal legislation in Spain and in the Catalan region in particular. The leading role Barcelona has played in making the installation of solar thermal systems compulsory in new buildings, and the positive results of it, was a catalyst for setting ambitious goals on national level.

This joint paper from the OECD and IEA (October 2006) looks into the different barriers that exist which prevent solar thermal technologies to deliver its real potential. Next to listing the barriers, the document also looks into means to overcome these, the existing technologies & markets and identifies best practices which can be used by policy makers in both industrialised and developing countries.

Three barriers to diffusion are analysed in more detail:

(1) Technical barriers,

(2) Economic barriers and

The objective of this paper is to analyse and evaluate international experiences with the promotion of solar water heaters at household level.

During the compilation of this study, it became apparent that responsible organisations did not pay much attention to a distinct monitoring and an explicit evaluation of promotion programmes. The study shows which promotion measures resulted particularly successful, which difficulties occurred during their implementation and how these circumstances possibly could have been avoided.

The Barcelona Solar Thermal Obligation was the first of its kind adopted in a large European city. The first version entered into effect in August 2000. The revised version was approved in February 2006. Main changes are that the regulations now apply to more buildings and that the solar fraction was increased.

This presentation provides an overview of the Barcelona Solar Thermal Ordinance. This ordinance aims at promoting and regulating through local legislation the installation of low-temperature
systems for collecting and using active solar energy for the production of hot water for
buildings.