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:
IEA SHC Task 51: German Summer School Educates Students on Solar Urban Planning
The summer school called City in Transition (Stadt im Wandel) ended with a public presentation of the project designs from four student groups on Monday, 26 September, in Berlin, Germany (see photo). During the previous week, students from different fields and German universities had developed a master plan for solar-optimised …
IEA SHC Task 50: Lighting Industry Explores Contracting Solutions
LED technology has greatly changed the face of the lighting market: In just a few years, lighting systems have become twice as efficient and half as expensive. These changes have resulted in a large but often untapped cost- and energy-saving potential in commercial buildings. The research in Task 50 of …
District heating: “The industry is very optimistic about its future prospects”
ct heating has a long history in Scandinavia: The international symposium on district heating was launched there in 1987. In the meantime, the technology has reached the global stage and the 15th International Symposium on District Heating and Cooling was the first one supported by the IEA District Heating and …
IEA SHC: Attractive Solar Solutions for Urban and Landscape Planning
How can urban planners be convinced to consider solar energy technologies in municipality projects? This is the key challenge faced by the international group of researchers of Task 51, Solar Energy in Urban Planning. One way to attract interest from these planners is to present them with case studies of …
IEA SHC: Cost Reduction Analysis Workshops at German University of Stuttgart
System cost reduction is one of the most urgent challenges of the solar thermal sector, especially in central Europe. The aim of Task 54 of the IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programme, Price Reduction of Solar Thermal Systems, is to lower solar heat prices by up to 40 %. Germany’s …
IEA SHC: Coordinating Thermal Energy Storage Research Worldwide
The key to the decarbonisation of the energy sector is new compact storage technology: It will require much R&D to develop market-ready products based on new storage designs with phase change and thermochemical materials (PCMs and TCMs). One strategy is to combine resources within international research programmes – to create …
TASK 45 / 55: Guidelines on How to Design Seasonal Storage
Seasonal storage is a key component in the transformation of today’s energy industry. Besides storing energy in summer for heating in winter, it can also be used to save waste heat from the industry and to increase the electricity production from biomass CHP plants. Experiences gathered with the technology during …
Slovakia: Newest Member Country of IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programme
Slovakia is the first country from Eastern Europe to join the IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (IEA SHC). Since its admission, the small nation of only 5.5 million people has been represented by Artur Bobovnický (photo) from the Slovak Innovation and Energy Agency (SIEA). Bobovnický, who had previously held …
China: Challenges and Opportunities of World’s Largest Solar Thermal Market
Reduced real estate investment has been the key reason for the strong decline of China’s solar thermal market. In 2015, the collector area installed annually was down to 43.5 million m² (30.5 GWth), which almost put the figure back to the level of 2009, and the growth rates in 2013/2014 …
German Energy Transformation Scenarios: Solar thermal As Optional, Not Mandatory Technology for Least Cost Solutions
How much will the transformation of the German energy industry cost if it is to reach greenhouse gas emissions reductions of at least 80 % by 2050? The German Institute Fraunhofer ISE used its Renewable Energy Model REMod-D for Germany 2050 to perform the simulations necessary to answer this key …
Australia: Good Funding for Solar Process Heat, but Little Trust by Industry
Australia’s energy policy has been in the international press mostly for its shift back toward coal under the former Prime Minister Tony Abbott. However, Jeremy Osborne, Director of Energy Analysis & Engineering, said in an interview with solarthermalworld.org that Australia did have a “supportive government despite all the news”. Since July …
Austria: Green Brewery Göss Receives IEA SHC Award
At the international conference Gleisdorf Solar in Austria, Austrian brewery Göss was presented with the SHC Solar Award, the “Oscar” of the solar heating and cooling industry. The IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (IEA SHC) created this award to recognise outstanding achievements by suppliers or users of solar thermal …
