The International Energy Agency, Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (IEA SHC) released the 2016 edition of its report on the global status of the solar thermal heating and cooling market. It includes data from 61 countries resenting over 95% of the global solar thermal market and for the first time data on solar thermal cost and levelized costs of heat.
The Austrian Green Brewery Göss won the International Energy Agency Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (IEA SHC) Solar Award for applying solar thermal to produce their product.
Danish Arcon-Sunmark and Chinese Sunrain established a joint venture which aims to offer large-scale solar heating systems for the Chinese market.
A German research station at Terra Nova Bay, Antarctica, is now equipped with nine air collectors to provide heating during the summer.
A new mobile sterilisation unit uses solar heat to sterilise surgical instruments, making it easier to perform operations in remote areas where there is no hospital.
Compared to 2014, the market for solar thermal collectors has shrunk by 14%. This value has been determined on the basis of 18 countries, in which solar collectors with an overall thermal capacity of 32.7 GW have been installed. In 2014 those countries installed a total of 43.4 GW.
Combining the power and heat market requires sophisticated overall systems that do not just consist of a single CHP unit or a heat pump. A virtual electricity storage facility in Biberach, Germany, illustrates how this can be achieved.
Here you can find a small selection of comprehensive market overvies from the solar thermal sector:
Market Overview: Vacuum Tube Collectors
Market Overview: Flat Plate Collectors
Market Overview: Solar Stations
Photovoltaic Feed