Spain: EuroSun 2016 Focuses on Complete Solar Systems

Photo: Eva Augsten

Over the past years, ISES has begun to shift the focus of the Eurosun conference from solar thermal technologies toward complete solar systems, including photovoltaics, PVT Technologies and heat pumps. Weber pointed out during the opening session that solar energy had become an important contributor to energy supply. Stakeholders in conventional energy technologies felt threatened by its ascent and tried to stop the change to renewables. “ISES can play a very important global role in making sure that this transformation process goes smoothly, goes as fast as possible,” Weber said in an interview conducted during the conference (see links below).

Photos: Eva Augsten

“We are facing a very dynamic development of the renewable energies, especially in the solar part. There is kind of a competition coming up between photovoltaics and solar thermal. They use the same spaces. Photovoltaics can do everything solar thermal is doing via heat pumps or directly, and the prices are coming down,” added Wolfgang Streicher, Chair of Eurosun’s international committee. This is roughly in line with the simulations by Fraunhofer ISE which depict what a future energy network in Germany could look like. Their scenarios include large amounts of pump-generated heat based on renewable power from sun and wind energy.

Streicher’s conclusions were corroborated by Adel El Gammal, co-founder and Director of the Becquerel Institute, a Brussels-based consultancy specialised in PV and electricity markets. “I do not think we need to separate energy into heating and electricity,” he said during the forum Solar Energy in Europe in the Current Market Development Situation on the second conference day.

But what some call a holistic approach is seen as a strategic error by others. Andreas Häberle, Director of Swiss SPF – Institute for Solar Technology, made clear that he believed long-term decisions should not be made based on short-term economic opportunities, but based on what technological solution performed best in the long run. In his opinion, solar thermal technologies should play a bigger role then they were doing now. Robin Welling, CEO of Austrian solar thermal manufacturer Tisun and President of the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation (ESTIF), agreed: “Heating is our task,” he said during the panel discussion. Ken Guthrie, Chair of the Executive Committee of the IEA SHC Programme, tried to consolidate the different views: “We need to cooperate where cooperation is needed and compete where it is relevant – for instance, there will be competition for roof space,” he said. “But at the same time, we should not forget that we are still producing energy from coal – which is our common enemy.”

Photo: Eva Augsten

A few of the other conference topics: solar process heat, storage technologies and the integration of solar elements into the architectural design of buildings and cities. There was also a solar cooking workshop taking place on the conference site. And 20 students from the European Master Course in Solar Energy attended the conference as a part of their course programme.

More information:http://eurosun2016.org/