Beginning of April, a historic acquisition took place in the solar heating and cooling industry. Greenonetec, the largest collector manufacturer in Europe, purchased key parts of the business of Danish-based Arcon-Sunmark, the European leader in developing solar district heating projects.

The acquisition followed months-long negotiations between Greenonetec CEO Robert Kanduth and Torben Sørensen, Group Executive Officer at VKR Holding, the corporate group that owns Arcon-Sunmark. VKR Holding decided to terminate most of the solar thermal business within the group because of huge price drops faced by suppliers of large solar fields and fluctuations in the contracting market, which resulted in considerable losses for Arcon-Sunmark in recent years.

The week started with the publication of a press release stating that parts of Arcon-Sunmark will be sold off because of a large financial deficit in recent years. “The financial development with heavy losses is intolerable,” Thomas Karst, current CEO of Arcon-Sunmark, is quoted as saying in the press release from 30 March. “We are sorry about the situation. However, we respect the decision of the owners.”

Three days later, on 2 April, Arcon-Sunmark sent out a second press release stating that Greenonetec acquired key assets of Arcon-Sunmark and that the Chinese Solareast Group (which owns the Sunrain and Micoe brands) bought the shares in Chinese-Danish joint venture Solareast Arcon-Sunmark Large-Scale Solar Systems Integration, which has put up two solar district heating plants in Tibet over the last years.

“We have taken an important step towards consolidating the solar thermal industry by bringing Arcon-Sunmark’s extensive expertise in project development and large-scale collector production to our highly streamlined solar manufacturing business,” Kanduth explained. He plans to integrate the fully automated production line for large-scale collectors into the company’s factory in Austria and retain the majority of the project development and sales team of Arcon-Sunmark. He also confirmed that he wants to focus on sales and project development in Europe and North America and has no plans for the Asian market. The latter is why Arcon-Sunmark’s assets in Asia, including the factory in Vietnam, were split off and sold to the Solareast Group.

Source and full article: solarthermalworld.org

Picture: Arcon-Sunmark

Mainly public utilities have installed large solar thermal collector arrays in Germany in the year 2019. The new solar thermal collector arrays for the application in district heating networks cover a total area of around 35,000 square metres. This means that the installed peak power has increased by around 50 percent.

According to the Steinbeis Research Institute Solites in Stuttgart, around 70 megawatts of solar thermal capacity is available for district heating systems in Germany. Some of the new systems are scheduled to start operation in the beginning of 2020. However, as the collector fields have already been erected in 2019, the growth in solar district heating is already prepared. The map below gives an overview of the plants in operation, in planning and in preparation in Germany.

Stadtwerke Ludwigsburg-Kornwestheim, for example, supplied solar heat into the grid for the first time in the course of the first quarter of 2020. With 14,800 square metres, the collector field is currently the largest of its kind in Germany. In Bernburg the situation is similar. Here, the thermal storage is all that is missing for the full operation of the solar thermal collector field that has already been installed in December. The municipal utility of Bernburg plans to finalize it in spring 2020.

“In 2019, mainly municipal utilities in urban areas discovered solar district heating for themselves,” summarized Thomas Pauschinger, member of the Solites management board. Pauschinger considers it a remarkable development that solar heat is now an economically interesting alternative to conventional energy sources for district heating network operators. Key in this development were certainly many successful reference plants and many good arguments as the fact that solar heat supports decarbonising the district heating networks.

Large-scale solar district heating is technically mature. The information of good operating results of the first commercial plants has spread among German utilities. The disadvantage of renewable energies of high investment costs has been addressed and is met with strong governmental support programmes. Thus, the advantage of permanently low operating costs are even more convincing. Furthermore, the decided CO₂ price contributes to further growth and market prospects for large solar thermal systems.

However, the status quo of large solar district heating systems should not be overestimated, Pauschinger emphasizes: “The share of solar heat in district heating sales is still low today. However, we assume a market potential of around 20 gigawatts and expect the market to continue to grow in the coming years”.

Text and map: Solites
Picture: Guido Bröer

Renewable district heating has become a hot topic in Serbia. The conference Renewable Energy Sources in District Heating and Cooling, held at the same time as the 50th International HVAC&R Congress and Exhibition in early December in Belgrade, attracted more than 400 attendees.

“The great interest shown by experts and the media during the December conference helped us a lot in forging new relationships with high-level representatives for municipalities, local governments and public utility companies to raise the profile of SDH,” said Bojan Bogdanovic, who launched the event. He is also Principal Fund Manager of Renewable District Energy in the Western Balkans (ReDEWeB), a programme supported by Austria and implemented by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

ReDEWeB has already supported several prefeasibility and feasibility studies on solar district heating in Serbia and Kosovo. The most advanced project in terms of planning is the one in the Serbian town of Pancevo, where the two-year test of a 906 m² solar field put up in January 2017 has convinced the local council of the benefits of solar heat. Together with the Kotež power plant, the field supplies hot water to about 2,200 citizens. The council then commissioned the installation of 198 large collectors, mounted onto the roof of the Kotež plant, to meet an even higher share of the hot water needs in the district heating network with solar energy. The council members are now looking into adding an SDH system with seasonal storage. A prefeasibility study prepared by the Austrian engineering firm Solid mentions a 35,000 m² field of collectors, 150,000 m³ of storage volume and a 15 MW absorption heat pump.

All presentations from the 50th International HVAC&R Congress have been posted online and are available for download here.

Source and full article: solarthermalworld.org
Picture: Milica Knežević for SMEITS©2019

Solar heat improves energy security, keeps heat costs stable for at least 20 years and cuts air pollution in towns and cities. To encourage more mayors, local council members and municipal utilities to look into this cost-effective solution, researchers working on IEA Task 55, Towards the Integration of Large SHC Systems into District Heating and Cooling Networks, published the brochure Solar Heat for Cities in November.

The SHC Task 55 of the International Energy Agency aims to develop technical and economic requirements for the commercial market introduction of solar district heating and cooling (DHC) for a broad range of countries. The activities aim to improve technological know-how, market know-how and understanding of the boundary conditions as well as to provide expert know-how for project initiation and implementation and for training. This consumer promotion material includes 11 infographics that illustrate solar district heating (SDH) technologies, their advantages and market growth. The files, available in English, German and French, can be downloaded in JPG or PDF format and can be used free of charge in third-party publications.

“SDH markets are growing in Denmark, Germany and China, and new markets are starting to emerge, for example, in France, Italy, Poland and Spain,” explained Sabine Putz, Chair of Task 55. “With this brochure, we aim to address new investors and local decision-makers.” The case studies into successful SDH projects shown in Solar Heat for Cities brochure are real-world testimony to the benefits of solar district heating for municipalities. Satisfied SDH investors explain why they chose a specific mix of technologies, including solar energy, to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels or lower heat prices for their customers. The logic behind this approach is: “If it works for them, it could work for us too.”

The brochure showcases nine SDH systems built in Austria, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Latvia and Serbia. The infographic above shows a usual set-up and main elements of SDH systems.

The brochure and the information charts were sponsored by the following Task 55 participants, in cooperation with the Belgian-based European Copper Institute: Solites (Germany), Solareast Arcon-Sunmark Large-Scale Solar Systems Integration (China), Aalborg CSP (Denmark), newHeat (France), Savosolar (Finland) and Greenonetec (Austria).

Download the SDH infographics here.
Download the ‘solar heat for cities’ brochure here.

Images: IEA SHC Task 55
Source and full article: solarthermalworld.org