The European Commission published its long-awaited EU Strategy for Heating and Cooling on 16 February 2016. It was the first time that the commission took the initiative to address exclusively renewable energy use for heating and cooling in buildings and industry, which accounts for 50 % of the EU´s annual energy consumption. “This is an important milestone to improve the policy framework for the solar thermal sector, as it sets the direction for the incoming EU legislative revisions for 2016,” the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation lauded the publication in a press release.

Between 8 and 11 March, Berlin will be the venue of choice for standard and certification experts from all corners of the globe. Then, the city will host three international meetings to discuss standard and certification issues at European and global level: First, there is the meeting of the Solar Keymark Network (SKN) headed by Jaime Fernández González-Granda (left); second, there is the one of the Global Solar Certification Network led by Harald Drück (middle). The third event is the kick-off meeting of the newly created Task 57, Solar Standards and Certification, which will be headed by Jan Erik Nielsen (right).

German IT company Cloud&Heat offers its customers two products which would have seemed totally unrelated a couple of years ago: cloud computing and heat for space or water heating. To extract usable heat, Cloud&Heat has developed a special water cooling system for server cabinets to achieve temperatures of 55 °C. Usually, 90 % of the electricity consumed by servers is waste heat. “Our Green Cloud doubles down on saving energy by covering both the cooling and heating demand of residential buildings,” explains Jens Struckmeier, one of the three founders of Cloud&Heat. A business model that could also inspire solar thermal system suppliers?

Dr Bastian Schmitt can look back at more than ten years of experience in the field of solar process heat. As part of his doctoral thesis, the mechanical engineer developed a classification system for the integration of solar thermal systems providing process heat on industrial premises. Today, he is a member of Task 49 of the IEA’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme and heads the working group Process Heat at the Institute of Thermal Engineering (ITE), a department of the University of Kassel, Germany. Solarthermalworld.org spoke with him about the latest research into solar thermal integration and the goals set in last year’s guidelines.

Two years after the end of the tax credit scheme that was part of law 20.365, the Chilean parliament approved an extension of the support programme for solar thermal systems in January 2016. Construction companies can offset parts of the solar thermal investment costs as part of their next year´s tax declaration. The tax credit cap will decrease progressively until 2020. Although it is good news for domestic solar system suppliers and installers, the approval process for the new incentive took one year longer than expected and many local companies are in critical condition after a prolonged downturn in the industry’s economic activity.