500 experts from more than 50 countries attended the 5^th International Conference on Solar Heating and Cooling (SHC) in Abu Dhabi, UAE, from 30 October to 2 November 2017. It was the first time that this biennial conference by the IEA’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme had been organised jointly with the Solar World Congress by the International Solar Energy Society (ISES). The electrification of the heat sector and utility-scale record low solar prices prompted controversial discussions during several plenary sessions.

Because of a strong order pipeline, the future is looking bright for one Indian solar thermal turnkey supplier: Bhoovarahan Thirumalai, CEO of Aspiration Energy, expects to realise solar heat for industrial processes projects at a total capacity of 20 MW in the next one-and-a-half years – all of them as a solar heat supplier. This would be a significant increase compared to the 2.5 MW of solar thermal capacity that the company set up over the course of 20 installations in the last 7 years.

The shift towards solar in Namibia, the beginning of a solar cooling success story in the Gulf states and the right to light for solar energy users in urban areas – these are three of the issues discussed in 12 expert interviews from the joint SHC 2017 and SWC 2017 conference in Abu Dhabi in early November. See the complete playlist.

In Australia, the deployment of large commercial solar thermal plants is picking up speed. This year, Monash University had a solar field of 0.5 MW put into operation to feed into the district heating network of the large campus area in Victoria. Currently, Danish Aalborg CSP is in dialogue with Perth-based Agrimin about the supply of solar process heat to a planned sulphate of potash mine and processing factory in Western Australia.

What will be the role of solar thermal in 2050’s energy sector? This is one of the key questions that the fourth and last Solar Academy webinar intends to answer. Experts from the IEA SHC research project Solar Heat and Energy Economics in Urban Environments will present results of scenario calculations on future market development and introduce best-practise tools for solar heat-based urban energy design. We invite all stakeholders to join the 1.5-hour webinar scheduled for Thursday, 14 December 2017, from 10 to 11.30 am GMT (Greenwich Mean Time). You can register online.