California | Solarthermalworld

December 4, 2018
Solar thermal cooling and hot water at hotel in California

US-based company Energy Concepts has been offering absorption chillers for more than 20 years. In 1996, it installed its first commercial ammonia absorption chiller in Kotzebue, Alaska, and that unit is still in use today, during the salmon season in summer. In August 2016, it started up a...
December 3, 2018
California between PV mandate and buildings ready for solar heat

This year, California´s energy policy has been clearly focused on pushing PV. As recently as September, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill committing the Golden State to zero-carbon electricity supply by 2045. Likewise, revised Building Energy Efficiency Standards, which the California...
May 25, 2018
California Solar Initiative dominated by multi-family houses

In 2017, the California Solar Initiative (CSI) – Thermal Program supported the installation of 20,000 m² of collector area, a 20 % increase over the prior year. With 10,832 m², or four times the area installed in 2016, multi-family buildings dominated the subsidy landscape for those 12...
January 3, 2018
Solar thermal goes digital

On 14 December 2017, members of industry associations Austria Solar and BSW-Solar met founders of start-ups to draw up digital strategies for solar thermal. One of the key findings from the one-day workshop in Vienna, Austria, was that “traditional solar thermal companies cannot take on...
December 18, 2017
California gets 850 MW solar steam plant for enhanced oil recovery

While Miraah in Oman (see photo) has only recently begun its solar steam production, US-based Glasspoint has already announced plans to construct another solar plant for enhanced oil recovery...
July 10, 2017
USA: Solar Steam Installation for California’s Pistachio Harvest

Californian start-up Sunvapor has found its first solar steam customer for a demonstration system with the Green Parabolic Trough Collector technology developed in-house. In April 2017, it announced that it had gone into partnership with Horizon Nut to install a 50-kW solar process heat...
June 23, 2017
USA: Concerted Actions in California and New York

It will require concerted actions by the industry to keep solar heating and cooling on the agenda of politicians and administrators of incentive programmes in the United States. The Californian solar industry achieved a partial victory in mid-May, when the state assembly approved the...
March 24, 2017
USA: Commercial Systems Dominate Californian Solar Thermal Market

The California Solar Initiative (CSI) – Thermal Program seems to have stabilised at around 20,000 m² (or around 200,000 ft²) of subsidised collector area per year. Commercial applications dominate the statistics, although there was a spike in the share of residential systems in 2016. The...
February 16, 2017
USA/California: CALSEIA´s New President Promises to “Keep SHC on the Agenda”

The California Solar Energy Industries Association (CALSEIA) named Ed Murray, a solar expert with more than 30 years of experience in the field, its new president in early January 2017. He succeeded Rick Reed, Director of California-based collector manufacturer Sunearth. Murray, a 25-year...
July 14, 2016
California: San Francisco Passes First Mandate with Solar Thermal Option

After Lancaster, Sebastopol and Santa Monica, San Francisco is now the fourth – and the largest – US American city to mandate the use of solar energy in residential and commercial newbuilds. It also has the first mandate in California which can be complied with by using either solar thermal...
February 24, 2016
USA: Extended Tax Credits for Weak Solar Thermal Market

Against all odds, the solar heating tax credits in the USA were extended again by 5 years. On 18 December 2015, the Consolidated Appropriations Act was signed, including an extension of the so-called federal Investment Tax Credits up to 2021. Originally, the tax incentives were expected to...
August 25, 2015
USA: Ups and Downs of Californian Incentive Levels and Application Numbers

If there were an award for the most transparent support programme in the field of solar heating and cooling, then the California Solar Initiative (CSI) – Thermal Program would get the prize. The CSI-T programme offers a regularly updated and publicly available Excel file of all...