Key factors behind SHIP project developers’ business satisfaction
Development of solar process heat projects is a challenging business around the world. Slow decision-making by the clients, low fossil fuel energy prices and a lack of faith in the relatively new technology once again made it hard to close deals last year. This became apparent when around 70 SHIP specialists were surveyed at the beginning of 2025. Among the 37 companies that responded to the question “Are you satisfied with the sales volume of SHIP plants in 2024?” only seven answered “yes”. In this article, we take a closer look at the reasons for this satisfaction. You can also read the news about the results of the SHIP world market survey here. The photo shows the 364 m2 flat plate collector system that supplies heat to a commercial laundry at the public hospital in San Alejandro, Mexico. Photo: Modulo Solar
Top SHIP project developers
Among the satisfied companies is Modulo Solar from Mexico. The flat plate collector manufacturer achieved the highest number of new SHIP projects in 2024 – a total of 18, three more than a year earlier. Customers were mainly commercial laundries in hospitals, but also a number of food producers. Demand arose during the corona virus pandemic. “Before the pandemic it was not very common to use hot water at laundries in Mexico. A new regulation now makes it mandatory that all commercial laundries use hot water,” said Daniel Garcia, CEO at Modulo Solar, explaining the high demand from this sector.
The Chinese Solareast group with its two brands Sunrain and Micoe reported 15 new projects for 2024, all set up in China. The systems with flat plate and vacuum tube collectors are mostly used for preheating for boilers. Its customers include electronics companies as well as machine manufacturers and the chemical industry.
The Austrian air collector manufacturer Cona Solar secured third place in the listing of project developers with the most new projects in 2024. The company has travelled the world, installing systems not only in Austria but also in Germany, the USA, Cuba and Colombia.
With ten finalized projects in the agricultural sector, G2 Energy from the Netherlands achieved fourth place in the ranking for most new plants. However, this is a massive drop compared to the 25 installations of the previous year. Director Peter de Bruin blames the fact that the government systematically links “off the gas” to solar PV and heat pumps as well as the changed subsidy conditions. The ISDE subsidy programme decreased the subsidy level by around 30 %. This programme supports solar thermal systems up to 200 m2 for private and commercial customers as one of several energy-saving technologies.
The world moves towards green aluminium
Another satisfied company is Glasspoint, which perceives that there is a stronger commitment to decarbonize within large industrial companies, for example from the aluminium industry. Glasspoint’s CTO mentioned the fact that industrial clients respond more to ESG targets. ESG means the evaluation of how a company performs on environmental, social and governance criteria to determine the level of sustainability that it has achieved.
Glasspoint reached an agreement with the aluminium producer Ma’aden in Saudi Arabia for the construction of a 9 MW technology show-case Project at the beginning of 2024, which is scheduled to go into operation in 2026. However, the start of construction for the entire plant with more than 1 GW, which was originally planned for 2026, has been delayed.
SHIP expands in Latin America
With NeoEnergy, the first company from Panama will be listed on the SHIP Supplier World Map during the update in the coming weeks. The company is pleased with the sales volumes of solar process heat systems in 2024. It has installed two systems for egg washing in Panama using flat plate collectors totalling 225 m2.
SHIP continues to expand in Latin America. Mexico is traditionally very prominent in the SHIP market and has the largest number of SHIP systems in operation worldwide. Project developers have also reported new SHIP systems in Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia and Cuba for 2024.
Mexico and Panama are also on the list of countries that project developers mentioned several times in response to the question “Which were the most important SHIP markets in 2024 in terms of interest from industrial clients?” (see following chart). The list of companies is headed by Spain, Germany and Mexico, which each received six nominations.
Most interesting SHIP markets in 2024. A long list of countries were only mentioned once each: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Dominican Republic, Finland, Great Britain, Jordan, Kuwait, Peru, Poland, Serbia, South Africa, Turkey, UAE. Source: Survey 2025 of the companies listed on the SHIP Supplier World Map
Flagship projects with concentrating collectors
The 2024 SHIP market was dominated by concentrating collectors. 69 % of the newly installed SHIP capacity is based on such collectors. The 80 MW parabolic trough collector field in China accounted for a large proportion of this. It provides heat for snow making in a leisure park in China. However, other flagship projects with tracked collectors also went into operation last year.
The Spanish project developer Solatom has realized a flagship project in Mexico. It is the first Linear Fresnel plant in Latin America (see photo above). The collector field with a mirror surface of 521 m2 produces 180 °C steam for the factory of a global cooperation in Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City. Solatom CEO Miguel Frasquet is generally satisfied with the business development, noting a well-filled project pipeline.
A demonstration plant for the production of green aviation fuels from biomass has been running in Germany since September 2024. The German startup Synhelion has built a heliostat field with 1,100 m2 that concentrates the sun on a tower receiver. Heat at over 1,100 °C is used in the reactor to convert biomass into synthetic gas.
Websites of organizations mentioned in this news article:
Turnkey SHIP Supplier World Map: https://www.solar-payback.com/suppliers/
Modulo Solar: https://modulosolar.com/en/index.html
Solareast group with brand Micoe : https://www.micoe.com/
Cona Solar: https://www.conasolar.com/
G2 Energy: https://g2energy.nl/
Glasspoint; https://www.glasspoint.com/
NeoEnergy: https://neoenergypanama.com/
Solatom: https://solatom.com/
Synhelion: https://synhelion.com/
