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  • First SDH system in Sub-Saharan Africa
    May 22, 2019

    First SDH system in Sub-Saharan Africa

    On 15 May, the Austrian Ambassador to South Africa inaugurated two landmark projects that had received support from SOLTRAIN, the Southern African Solar Thermal Training and Demonstration Initiative, during planning and installation. One became the first solar district heating plant in Sub-...
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  • Seasonal pit heat storage: Cost benchmark of 30 EUR/m³
    May 17, 2019

    Seasonal pit heat storage: Cost benchmark of 30 EUR/m³

    Denmark has had a successful learning curve regarding to the cost and efficiency of seasonal pit heat storage, which is used to store sunlight in summer for heating purposes in winter. Take Sunstore 3, for example, a 60,000 m³ pit heat storage system built at a cost of 38 EUR/m³ of storage...
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  • Heat supply contracts: Popular but hard to implement
    May 16, 2019

    Heat supply contracts: Popular but hard to implement

    A popular business model for solar thermal companies is a heat supply contract. More than 80 % of the businesses shown on the global map of turnkey systems providers for industrial solar heat, also known as SHIP, see these contracts and ESCOs as important means to boost sales. Almost the...
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  • Industrial Solar and Gasco join forces
    May 13, 2019

    Industrial Solar and Gasco join forces

    In February, Germany’s Industrial Solar and Australia’s Gasco signed a cooperation agreement to develop the solar process heat market in Australia and its neighbouring countries by offering hybrid systems which use both solar and fossil energy. The photo shows a solar field installed by...
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  • Demand falls as Kenya ends solar thermal regulations
    May 11, 2019

    Demand falls as Kenya ends solar thermal regulations

    In August 2018, Kenya’s parliament revoked the rules that stipulated the installation of solar thermal systems in buildings needing more than 100 litres of hot water per day. Drafted by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) in 2012, they came into effect on 25 May 2017 following a...
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  • Position papers on daylighting and standards & certification
    May 7, 2019

    Position papers on daylighting and standards & certification

    Why promote the use of daylight in non-residential buildings? What measures should government agencies take to help the market? How vital is it to standardise and certify solar thermal products? Answers to these questions can be found in position papers recently published by the IEA Solar...
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  • World’s largest flat plate collector manufacturers in 2018
    May 3, 2019

    World’s largest flat plate collector manufacturers in 2018

    2018 saw much consolidation in the global collector industry. In spite of a shrinking market around the world, however, the largest flat plate collector manufacturers managed to increase production output by 7 %. Their success was due to steadily growing sales in China and the bright...
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  • 20,000 subsidised solar water heaters in Jordan
    May 1, 2019

    20,000 subsidised solar water heaters in Jordan

    The Jordan Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Fund (JREEEF) has launched a project to bring solar hot water to all parts of the Hashemite Kingdom. Its aim is to have 20,000 solar water heaters (SWHs) installed in the residential sector between 2013 and 2019. The business in charge of...
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  • Swiss study identifies 5.6 GWth of SHIP potential at up to 100 °C
    April 26, 2019

    Swiss study identifies 5.6 GWth of SHIP potential at up to 100 °C

    Theoretically, Switzerland would need to install 8 million m² of collector area (5.6 GWth) to exploit the full potential of industrial solar heat below 100 °C, considering an annual yield of 400 kWh/m². The related study, titled Sol-Ind Swiss, was presented by its author,...
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  • Mexico, China and India lead global SHIP market
    April 25, 2019

    Mexico, China and India lead global SHIP market

    In 2018, suppliers of industrial solar heat technology commissioned 104 systems with a combined collector area of at least 57,283 m² (40 MWth). The number of systems was nearly identical to that a year earlier, when 107 installations came online. At the end of last year, at least...
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  • “Growing competition from heat pumps and gas boilers”
    April 24, 2019

    “Growing competition from heat pumps and gas boilers”

    The Chinese market for solar thermal systems has nearly been cut in half since the peak year of 2013 and is almost back to 2008 levels. There were multiple reasons for the steep drop in sales, according to an interview with Hongzhi Cheng, Managing Director of consultancy Sun’s Vision based...
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  • ESCO solar heat projects in Spain
    April 19, 2019

    ESCO solar heat projects in Spain

    More and more system suppliers are offering solar heat supply contracts, which reflects a growing trend in the solar heating and cooling market. And while most see Energy Service Companies, or ESCOs, as one among several options, Sumersol, based in Spain, specialises in this business,...
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