Solarthermalworld.org – Newsletter March 2019

Jay OwenSustainability News, Resource Efficiency

Newsletter March 2019#SolarHeat: the main Twitter hashtag

New hashtag for the solar heating and cooling sector: Today, #SolarHeat seems to be more appropriate than #SolarThermal, a hashtag agreed upon almost three years ago. The three major SHC organisations – Solar Heat Europe (formerly ESTIF), the IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (IEA SHC) and solarthermalworld.org – recommend that, from now on, you use #SolarHeat as a keyword to reference the solar heating and cooling market in general. This hashtag more accurately describes what the produced energy is, ultimately, being used for and is easily distinguishable from hashtags promoting projects and plants for producing electricity. Still, the organisations also concluded that the technology-specific hashtags, namely #SolarProcessHeat, #SolarCooling and #SolarDistrictHeating, which had been introduced in 2016, work just as well nowadays, and they like to see these keywords added to even more tweets in the future.

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TOP NEWS OF THE MONTH

Networking app for renewable projects
by Bäbel Epp

Fostering collaboration between investors, renewable technology suppliers and project developers has been the idea behind a new website called vestfind.com. The aim is to offer institutional fund managers and investors a database to find projects that suit their portfolios. The website operates on a not-for-profit basis.Read more

Building regulations stabilise Spanish market
by Alejandro Diego Rosell

According to national solar energy association ASIT, the Spanish solar thermal market was up by 2 % and added 205,505 m² (144 MWth) of collector area in 2018 compared to 2017. An increase in newbuilds was the main reason for that growth – a trend which is expected to continue for some time to come.Read more

Up to 55 % investment subsidy for solar process heat
by Bärbel Epp

Solar process heat has been a focus of Germany’s Market Rebate Programme since 2013. Last year, the programme’s managers noted increased interest in the funding, with 76 applicants requesting grants for 12,729 m² altogether. The collector area of all SHIP systems combined was almost as high as that of the 241 installations supported between 2013 and 2017.Read more

“We deliver solar heat at a much lower cost than diesel”
by Bärbel Epp

UAE-based Ocean Rubber Factory has been satisfied with its new 240 m² solar process heat system made by Swiss supplier TVP Solar. The installation not only produces heat at 180 °C, but it does so at a significantly lower cost than the diesel boilers operating at the same site. It provided 27 % of the average daily energy of the factory during “winter” month.Read more