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 52: Seeking Cost-optimised Urban Energy Systems
How can solar energy be ideally integrated into an urban energy system? This has been the key question of IEA SHC Task 52: Solar Heat and Energy Economics in Urban Environments. One and a half years after the task´s start in January 2014, scientists from Germany, Denmark, Austria and Switzerland …
France: New ESCO Focuses on Process Heat
A start-up company will host the next Task 49 meeting in Montpellier, France. This is unusual for the IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programme, but the business target of French company Sunti is a perfect fit for Task 49, which aims at increasing solar heat integration into industrial processes. Sunti …
Solar Cooling Week in China: Sector Still Growing in Asia and Europe
Solar thermal cooling is a “small, but steadily growing market,” Dr Uli Jakob from the Green Chiller Association for Sorption Cooling pointed out in his presentation Solar Air-Conditioning in Europe during the Solar Cooling Week, which took place in Shanghai from 23 to 27 March. The week started with two …
IEA SHC Task 46: Solar Irradiation Data Helps Schedule and Operate Solar Thermal Plants
IEA SHC Task 46, Solar Resource Assessment and Forecasting, is an SHC project conducted in cooperation with IEA’s SolarPACES for Concentrating Solar Power and the Photovoltaic Power Systems programme. Accurate assessment and forecasting of solar irradiation is a key issue in planning and operating solar electricity and solar thermal plants …
Germany: Polymer Collector Design for EUR 25 Production
During project ExKoll, scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Fraunhofer ISE, have developed a new low-cost design for solar thermal collectors. The entire production of an 80 cm x 160 cm collector made of polypropylene (PP, drawing on the right) with an operating temperature resistance of up …
Austria: Task 42 Meeting on Compact Thermal Energy Storage Systems
IEA-SHC Task 42, entitled Compact Thermal Energy Storage, has entered into its final year and will end in December 2015. In February 2015, 44 scientists met for the 13th Experts Task Meeting in Vienna, Austria, to discuss the characterisation and development of materials for latent heat storage systems. This included …
China: First Chinese Solar Cooling Conference to Take Place in Shanghai in March
This spring, a major event for solar cooling is going to take place in Shanghai: From 23 to 27 March 2015, the IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programme and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) will jointly organise a Solar Cooling Week in the city. The week is going to …
Norway: Research Community Visits Estate Built with Polymer Collectors
Norwegian collector manufacturer Aventa and the University of Oslo’s Department of Physics jointly hosted two meetings in the middle of October: The meeting of Task 39 (Polymeric Materials for Solar Thermal Applications) of the International Energy Agency’s Solar Heating and Cooling programme (IEA SHC), as well as the meeting of …
Australia: Ken Guthrie Appointed as New Chairman of IEA SHC Programme
It was the second time an Australian was chosen to head the Solar Heating and Cooling Programme of the International Energy Agency (IEA SHC Programme): In June, Ken Guthrie was elected Chair of the Executive Committee for the next two years. Guthrie founder and Director of Sustainable Energy Transformation, a …
Worldwide: Initiators of Solar Process Heat Database Look to Add More Reference Projects
The middle of March saw the launch of the online database http://www.ship-plants.info, which has so far collected 122 projects using Solar Heat for Industrial Processes (SHIP). The database was created in the frame of Task 49/IV of the Solar Heating and Cooling Programme by the International Energy Agency. The energy …
Sweden: Multi-Family Buildings Use Low Return Temperatures to Optimise Solar Yield
A greater difference of supply and return temperature in a heating circuit increases the share of energy which can be utilised from a solar thermal system or another renewable energy source. With this in mind, Swedish company Alfa Laval developed the highly efficient heat interface unit called Mini City and …
COPANT: One Common Standard – Better than 31 Different Ones?
To date, solar thermal energy has been a largely unregulated technology in Latin America. Most of the countries in the region are suffering from nationalised, uncoordinated and sometimes insufficient quality standards. This lack of agreement is hindering the development of a shared and mature market. The regional Pan American Standards …
