News | Solarthermalworld

May 5, 2021
SBE21 conference spotlights historic NZEBs

The SBE21 Heritage conference in mid-April involved a deep exchange of ideas between researchers, architects and practitioners about how to reduce the energy consumption of historic buildings while retaining their aesthetic features and cultural significance. The main contributors to the...
May 3, 2021
In Denmark, large heat pumps take DH market by storm

United in their drive to get rid of fossil fuel-fired heating, Denmark’s district energy providers spent years putting up a network of solar thermal systems, large ones in particular. But lately, priorities seem to have changed, with the focus now being put on heat pumps instead. Sales of...
April 28, 2021
How to design an 85 % solar-heated and 100 % solar air-conditioned house

During an online meeting from 1 to 2 July, the IEA Solar Heating and Cooling programme will launch a new global research platform called Task 66 Solar Energy Buildings. The researchers participating in the new task intend to develop and popularise a building standard focused on...
April 23, 2021
Serbia’s first big online conference on solar energy draws 2,000 attendees

Serbia would very soon take a significant step forward by approving a new Renewable Energy Act, Zorana Mihajlović, the country’s deputy PM and mining and energy minister, said at the First Big Conference on Solar Energy in Serbia on 14 April 2021 in Belgrade. The now-passed law...
April 20, 2021
Opposing trends in India’s solar thermal market 2020

In 2020, hopes for growth in India’s solar thermal market were dashed when Covid-19 spread like wildfire around the globe, causing a 10 % drop in annual capacity additions. A survey conducted by Malaviya Solar Energy Consultancy indicates 1.15 GW_th (1.64 million m²) of...
April 14, 2021
Water-energy nexus in wastewater management

Solar-powered water treatment can significantly reduce industrial manufacturers’ water and energy footprints and turn municipal water treatment plants into energy distributors. An example of this, a demo plant in Spain producing renewably sourced hydrogen and oxygen from wastewater, was...
April 12, 2021
Hydrogen-ready – the new buzzword in the heating industry

At the ISH digital, held from 22 to 26 March, Germany’s major heating companies offered attendees plenty of new event formats, including moderated board panels, professional film inserts, and live broadcasts of their exhibits. But as those businesses presented their new products, it became...
April 8, 2021
“Develop a business case for thermal energy storage”

Thermal energy storage will undoubtedly play a key role in linking the electricity with the heat sector and in decarbonising buildings and industry. It should come as no surprise then that thermal energy storage (TES) technologies are the focus of the latest Innovation Outlook report...
April 7, 2021
Mixed performance of world's largest flat plate producers in COVID year 2020

Last year’s outbreak of Covid-19 around the globe reduced sales of most of the largest flat plate collector manufacturers not based in China. Only a small number of non-Chinese businesses saw an increase in sales, the result of a new support policy in Germany. Chinese flat plate collector...
March 31, 2021
“7 MW solar heat plants will be a commodity in Europe in 5 to 10 years”

Viessmann, a major German provider of climate solutions for living spaces, strengthened its project development team last year, hiring Christian Stadler and four of his ex-colleagues in June 2020, after their former employer, Danish-based Arcon-Sunmark, stopped operation. As part of...
March 30, 2021
Supply chain maturity and economies of scale drive solar heat costs down

Europe’s solar thermal industry has achieved quite significant cost reductions since 2014, with economies of scale at the project level helping to drive down costs, Michael Taylor, of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), said at a 9 March webinar titled Cheaper than...
March 25, 2021
Improving the efficiency of SDH

Since the end of IEA SHC Task 55 – Large Solar District Heating and Cooling Systems last December, there have been multiple calls for continuing the work of this successful research platform in some fashion. In response, Viktor Unterberger, a senior researcher at the Austrian BEST –...