International Energy Agency’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme
The IEA Solar Heating and Cooling (SHC) Programme has over 35 years of international collaborative work in the field of research, development, demonstration (RD&D) and test methods for solar thermal energy and solar buildings. The results of this work are available for researchers, policy makers, industry, utility and business representatives, builders, architects and teachers
The IEA SHC Programme is a member-based Programme with 20 member countries and 5 member organizations. Its mission is “To enhance collective knowledge and application of solar heating and cooling through international collaboration to fulfill its vision of solar thermal energy meeting 50% of low temperature heating and cooling demand by 2050.”
Highlighted in the section below are some of our most recent publications:
Best practice examples of urban solar projects exceed expectations
Researchers working for the IEA Solar Heating and Cooling programme have created a list of urban solar heat projects that not only met but exceeded the ambitious aims set for them initially: Seven best-practice examples and two scoping studies of systems in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland became part …
SHC solar award: Six successful business models
The focus of this year’s Solar Award of the IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (IEA SHC) will be on technology suppliers and financial service providers that have created successful financing mechanisms. The jury has chosen six finalists, one of which will be presented with the SHC Solar Award at …
Reducing energy consumption in historic buildings
A meeting in mid-April, Copenhagen, Denmark, gave members of IEA SHC research platform Renovating Historic Buildings Towards Zero Energy (Task 59) the opportunity to meet researchers working on the EU Horizon 2020 project Robust Internal Thermal Insulation of Historic Buildings, or RIBuild, and prompted a fruitful exchange between experts in …
New Solar Keymark Network Rules Allow On-Site Testing
The Solar Keymark Network has expanded its range of options by including in situ testing. At a meeting in March 2019, a revised version of the Solar Keymark (SK) Scheme Rules was approved to allow collector efficiency tests in a real-life environment. It is now possible to create efficiency curves …
Regional Sustainable Energy Centres join IEA SHC
The UNIDO-coordinated Regional Sustainable Energy Centres will become sponsor members of the IEA Solar Heating and Cooling programme, a decision made by the IEA SHC Executive Committee at a meeting in Austria in early June. Seven Regional Centres for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency have already started operations, and two …
PV-Thermal collector area tops 1 million
PV-Thermal systems, which generate heat and electricity from the same collector, are gaining ever more traction: For the first time, they have now been included in the Solar Heat Worldwide report. Data supplied by 26 manufacturers from 11 countries indicates that more than 1 million m2 of PVT collector area …
Megawatt installations on the rise
The solar heating and cooling markets show a reversing trend. The majority of the largest markets outside of China saw demand increase for the first time since 2015. This trend change is due to several factors – improved cost-competitiveness of solar thermal systems, rising interest among commercial and industrial clients, …
Solar heat for desalination and metal recovery
Small desalination systems could help fight water scarcity, recover precious metals from industrial water, and treat wastewater from food processing so it can be re-used for field irrigation. These are but a few areas under study in Task 62, Solar Energy in Industrial Water & Wastewater Management, set up by …
Solar Cooling at Intersolar 2019
This year’s Intersolar Europe, which took place in Munich, featured a conference session titled Solar, the new cool? Among the speakers at this solar cooling event, held on 15 May, were Daniel Mugnier and Uli Jakob, former members of the IEA SHC research platform New Generation Solar Cooling & Heating …
German Energy consultants recommend solar thermal
The solar thermal industry cannot complain about a lack of enthusiasm among energy consultants: When asked in a survey by Task 54 of the IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (IEA SHC) what renewable heating technology was the most suited to work in concert with conventional sources of energy in …
Go-to-market strategies for industrial solar heat
Within the IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programme, preparations have been made to establish a new international research platform focusing on nearly market-ready technology and processes for industrial solar heat (SHIP) with temperatures of up to about 400 °C. “Our aim is to raise the profile of solar heat, which …
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 …
