Successful training session for Solar District Heating in France

2018-10-02T09:12:21+02:00Jul 6th, 2018|

An expert training session has been organized on the 5th and 6th of June 2018 at the French National Institute for Solar Energy. More than 30 participants working in engineering offices, district heating operators, city technical services or project developers took part in this event. Regarding the success of this training, a second session is planned for the end of 2018.

The development of solar district heating is currently experiencing a strong dynamic that continues to accelerate. In Europe, this strong progression was until now carried by Sweden, Germany, Austria, and the inevitable Denmark … but it begins to spread in France!

Commissioned in 2014 in Balma, the first French solar district heating plant has since then been joined by four other installations, which should be followed by three new projects in 2018. With many other projects being considered, France seems to be at the beginning of a strong development of solar district heating.

In order to support this dynamic, the French National Institute for Solar Energy, AURA-Energy Environment and ADEME organized on June 5th and 6th 2018 a training entirely dedicated to solar district heating. This exceptional training brought together international experts with decades of experience, as well as French actors on the initiative of the first national projects. Designed for engineering offices and project developers wishing to build skills on solar heating networks, these two days addressed the theme with a high level of technicality, maintaining a very operational approach.
The seminar addressed technical, administrative and economic issues at different stages of a project: pre-study, sizing, design, implementation, commissioning, operation and maintenance. It has been punctuated with feedback from the Danish, Austrian and French experts and case studies with implementation on a calculation tool.

This training was conducted with the participation of ADEME, AURA-EE, CEA, INES INDDIGO, PlanEnergi, SOLID and Tecsol. It was supported by ADEME and the Horizon 2020 project SDHp2m.

Author: Cédric Paulus, CEA tech/ INES – French National Solar Energy Institute

Read More

Arcon-Sunmark built a solar thermal field for Vattenfall in Berlin

2018-10-02T08:59:22+02:00Jun 15th, 2018|

The world market leader for solar district heating systems, Arcon-Sunmark, has now installed its first solar thermal system for a German district heating system in Berlin-Köpenick.

The solar plant, which has 78 large collectors has a total gross collector area of 1,058 m², is ground mounted on the premises of the combined heat and power plant of the energy company Vattenfall in Berlin-Köpenick. The collectors feed its energy into the return pipe of the Köpenick district heating system throughout the year using a heat exchanger without a storage tank. With this method the highest solar yield can be fed into the grid, explains Christian Stadler, Managing Director of Arcon-Sunmark’s German representation. Vattenfall had checked a solar feed-in into the supply pipe for the summer months by simulation, but finally rejected, as also the return feed-in had no effects on the efficiency of the connected CHP plant. This is mainly due to the size ratio between the huge district heating system of Berlin-Köpenick and the collector system, which is rather small for the Danish manufacturer’s standards, Stadler reports.

In this way, the system makes a considerable contribution to the district heating demand, especially in the summer, says Stadler: “For us, this system is important because it shows that solar thermal energy also works in the urban district heating of large cities in Germany. And by the way, in 90 percent of the cases – as in this example – we also find a solution for the land problem together with the supplier.”

Text: Guido Bröer, translated from the German original
Picture: Vattenfall

Read More

Big Solar Graz – reaching next milestones

2018-10-02T09:03:35+02:00Jun 15th, 2018|

Solid has been developing a concept for supplying up to 25% of district heating of Graz with solar thermal energy and a seasonal storage in late 2015.

Today, the project has developed reaching significant milestones. The land for both, the storage and the solar collectors is secured. The consortium consisting of VKR/Arcon-Sunmark, Energie Steiermark, Christof Industry and initiator Solid has recently announced the project progress to the media.

As per today, the project is designed to be resized to 220,000 m² and will be built as originally intended in the south of Graz. Together with a storage of approximately 900,000 m³ the system will cover 15% of the annual district heating demand of the city of Graz.

The plan is to move on with detailed engineering and permitting within the next months and start the construction in 2019.

Source: Solid

Read More

New SDH installations in Tibet and Inner Mongolia

2018-10-02T08:43:09+02:00May 29th, 2018|

China is the world’s largest market for DH, in addition to being the largest solar thermal market – a promising combination. In 2017, the Chinese central government conducted SDH feasibility studies in more than 20 counties and cities in Tibet, where many houses lack space heating, and awarded funding for two sites.

The Chinese parabolic trough collector manufacturer Vicot Solar Technology has signed a contract with the local government to install a solar district heating system in Shenzha county. The photo, taken in November 2017, shows one-third of the field’s substructure. The entire installation will have 18,000 m² of aperture area. The parabolic collector field is being installed in Shenzha county. Ouyang Cheng, Marketing Manager at Vicot Solar Technology, said that half of the collector field had already been completed in 2017 and that the remaining 9,000 m² would be set up this year. The collector field will run on thermal oil and will be connected to a district heating system. Vicot said that it planned to install a molten salt storage tank and use electric boilers for backup.

Additionally, the Chinese-Danish joint venture Arcon-Sunmark Large-Scale Solar Systems Integration signed a contract with the local government to set up a SDH heating network in Langkazi county in Tibet. The system should provide solar district heating for 82,600 m² of floor area and meet 90 % of the yearly space heating demand in Langkazi, the town sharing its name with the county. The system, planned to be set up by November 2018, will consist of a 22,000 m² collector field, 15,000 m³ of pit storage and a 3 MW electric boiler. The sponsor of the pilot project is as well the China’s central government.

Since October 2016, a 75,000 m² parabolic trough collector field for district heat seems to have been operating in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region in China. Ruicheng Zheng from the China Academy of Building Research said that she had heard about the system, but that all the information on it was only available online. On 28 December 2017, a news article appeared on sohu.com, one of China’s largest online media companies, stating that the system supplied a shopping centre and a development project known as ZhongCheng International City in the village of HongQing De, near Baotou. The journalist who interviewed the owners of the residential buildings and the shopping centre found customers satisfied with the solar space heating that the system provides.

 

Read More

70% of a typical city district in Bulgaria could be heated by SDH

2018-10-02T08:36:06+02:00May 28th, 2018|

70% of the heating and domestic hot water boiling in the ‘Kaysieva Gradina’ district in Varna, Bulgaria, could be provided by solar thermal energy by applying the SDH technology. To all the residents of Varna this is a huge opportunity to switch to clean heating, to end without using fossil fuels and to get rid of the fine particulate matter in the air. It is also crucial for achieving independence from the fuel imports. This is the conclusion of a recent survey performed by the Institute for Zero Energy Buildings in Sofia, Bulgaria. What’s more important is that the same number is relevant to all the medium and big cities in Bulgaria.

Solar district heating (SDH) consist of thermal solar collectors that produce heat for heating and domestic hot water throughout the year. This kind of installations are already very popular in Europe, especially in Denmark. ‘Today some 110 district heating companies in the country connecting between 200 and 15 000 consumers use solar district heating.’ said Per Alex Sorensen, one of the veterans of the technology, president of the FlexEnergi cluster, and a consultant at PlanEnergi, Denmark. SDH systems could function even more efficiently in Bulgaria, given the intense sunshine in the South-European country. The return on investment for a SDH system would be approximately 10 years, IZEB experts say. Its maintenance is easy and inexpensive.

The survey carried out by IZEB covers 69 residential apartment blocks build by prefabricated panels (‘panel blocks’) with a total built-up area of 285 000 square meters, located in the ‘Kaiysieva Gradina’ district of Varna. There is no centralized district heating network in this area. The main source of domestic heat are local electric stoves and air conditioners. In order to maximize the effect of the solar district heating system, thermal insulation should be applied to the residential buildings. ‘Our calculations show that, when these ‘panel’ apartment buildings have sufficient thermal insulation, thehousehold energy consumption will drop down to 85 kWh per square meter per year.’ said Dimitar Paskalev, an architect, founder and head of the Institute for Zero Energy Buildings.

Thermal solar collectors could be installed on all flat roofs of the ‘panel blocks’, where their location is most suitable considering the intensity of summer sunshine. Thermal collectors could also be integrated into the buildings’ facades. Also, these solar collectors could be a part of the thermal insulation of the residential buildings.

The heat output will reach 38 kWh/m²/a for the rooftop solar collectors and nearly 22 kWh/m²/a for the wall-mounted ones. Together, they will provide 60 kWh/m²/a. This means that district heating solar collectors can provide 70% of the annual heat consumption in the buildings. Heat energy could also be kept at seasonal storage systems placed udergroud, e.g. in the spaces between the buildings.

‘The typology of the multi-family residential appartment buildings built with pre-fabricated concrete panels is extremely popular in Bulgaria. Such type of buildings could be found both in big cities with large neighborhoods consisting of tens of panel blocks, and in smaller towns,’ said Dimitar Paskalev, head of IZEB.

At the moment Veolia Energy Varna, the district heating provider in the city, is evaluating the potential construction of a solar district heating system in Varna, the company announced. ‘We are exploring the possibilities for applying the SDHtechnology in Varna because we are trying to diversify the portfolio of energy sources we use – especially given the rising fuel prices we’re witnessing,’ said Lyubomir Kostov, Head of Customer Care and Development at Veolia Energy Varna.

The survey was initially announced during the first in Bulgaria training for design and construction of solar district systems. It took place during the ‘Black Seaside Days of Intelligent Energy’ in June 2017 at the Technical University Varna. It was organized by the Association of Bulgarian Black-Sea Municipalities and the Black-Sea Regional Energy Management Agency together with the Institute for Zero Energy Buildings, the National Association of Municipalities in Bulgaria, the Sofena Agency, the Technical University Varna and the Black Sea Research Energy Center.

The IZEB study of the potential of solar district heating in the ‘Kaysieva gradina’ district in Varna was carried out within the SDHp2m project (Solar District Heating … from Policy to Market) funded under the EU Horizon 2020 program.

Marta Stoilova

Read More

Decarbonising district heating with solar thermal energy

2018-06-07T13:47:15+02:00May 3rd, 2018|

The 5th International Solar District Heating Conference presented technical solutions as well as trends for district heating with solar thermal. Best practice examples serve to demonstrate their potential.

While Denmark is the pioneer country in terms of solar district heating, Graz has become a pioneer city for solar thermal energy in district heating. The project ‘BIG SOLAR Graz’ achieved a major milestone: the land for the construction of a large-scale solar thermal storage with a technical building as well as a relevant part of a future 450 000 m² solar collector field have been secured. Graz is also home to the largest solar thermal plant in central Europe (5,4 MWth) which has been operating for a while now as well as to new flagship projects such as, for example, the ‘HELIOS project’; a large-scale thermal storage built on a former domestic refuse landfill and fed by three different heat sources: a solar thermal plant, a power-to-heat module and a CHP plant powered by landfill gas. This is the reason why the second biggest city in Austria was chosen as the venue for the 5th International Solar District Heating Conference. 350 scientists as well as industry, community and utility representatives and decision makers from 33 countries met here on April 11th and 12th. The number of participants doubled compared to the conference two years ago which is a clear sign for the high interest in this technology and its implications for the decarbonisation of district heating. The conference leaders Christian Fink from AEE – Institute for Sustainable Technologies and Thomas Pauschinger from the Steinbeis Research Institute Solites in Stuttgart both see this as a very positive sign for the application of the solar thermal technology in district heating.In the European Union there are close to 300 systems over 350 kWth in size, feeding into district heating. The total capacity installed amounts to 1 100 MW. At the conference Werner Lutsch, president of the European district heating association Euroheat&Power and director of the German district heating association AGFW called the combination of solar thermal and district heating a ‘very good solution’ for reducing CO2 emissions as well as for reaching the EU goal which calls for an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020 compared to 1990 (Heating & Cooling strategy). Regarding its advantages, he pointed out that ‘solar thermal energy is CO2-free, solar energy is available everywhere and the heat generation costs are predictable for the coming 25 years. Furthermore the technology is fully developed and mature’.

However, he also admits that there are challenges to overcome when implementing such projects. The biggest hurdle stems from the space required for renewable energy such as solar thermal. In order to keep costs to a minimum, they need to be installed close to the heat consumers. Yet, land in or close to urban areas is usually limited and expensive. Lutsch added ‘Furthermore it is still a niche technology and the knowledge about it is not yet wide spread’. In addition, there is cost competition with other heat generation technologies, for example with cheap natural gas. Nevertheless, nowadays solar thermal plants can achieve a solar fraction of up to 50% in district heating. The generation costs are around 30 to 50 €/MWh. For this year market researchers predict that solar thermal plants in Europe will already contribute one terawatt hour (= 1 billion kWh) to the district heating supply.

Best practice examples

The conference participants took part in excursions where they were able to have a close look at how projects can be implemented successfully. One of the destinations was the above mentioned HELIOS plant, a project by Energie Graz. During the first construction phase last year, 2 000 m² of flat plate collectors with a 2 500 m³ heat storage were installed on a domestic refuse landfill in the city area of Graz. Heat is also generated by a power-to-heat module with a capacity of 90 kW as well as a 170 kWth CHP plant powered by landfill gas. The feed-in capacity to the district heating amounts to up to 10 MW. An intelligent storage management system ensures that peak loads in the heating network are diverted, so that heat from renewable sources is prioritized. The system has been in trial operation since November. Energie Graz is planning to expand the collector area to 10 000 m².

Another destination was the district heating Puchstraße where already today 7 750 m² of solar collectors are feeding into the district heating system of Graz. About 5 000 m² of collectors were installed as roof-mounted systems in 2007 and 2 750 m² were added on the ground by the heating plant in 2014. Currently the operator S.O.L.I.D. is adding another 500 m² of solar collectors. In this system, where the collectors are also ground-mounted, collectors from different manufacturers are tested for their application with district heating.

The second excursion lead to the community Eibiswald, where a 1 250 m² solar collector field and a 105 m³ heat storage have been supplementing the biomass heating plant since 1997. At that time the solar thermal system was able to cover 90% of the local heating network’s demand in summer. By adding new customers the yearly heating demand increased to 8 GWh in 2012 and the network grew to 10 000 m in length. This is why an additional 1 200 m² of solar thermal and a 70 m³ buffer storage were installed. The solar fraction is now 12%. The majority of the heating demand is covered by two woodchip boilers with 2.3 MW and 0.7 MW capacity. Thanks to the solar thermal plant the boilers can be taken out of operation entirely during the summer. According to Christian Fink ‘this is a very common combination of two renewables in rural areas in Austria’.

In total there are about 35 MWth (ca. 50 000 m² of collector area) of solar thermal feeding into district heating systems in the region around Graz and in Styria. The city of Graz is planning to completely decarbonise its heat supply in the medium term and has chosen solar thermal to be one of the main technologies in order to achieve this. In its final expansion stage the plant ‘BIG SOLAR Graz’ will provide 20% of the district heating demand and will entirely heat about 4 400 buildings.

Growing market in Germany

There is also progress in Germany. There are about 25 large-scale solar thermal plants with integration into district heating in operation. More systems with a total capacity of ca. 40 MWth are in the planning and preparation stage. Currently the strongest market segment is made up of energy villages (‘Energiedörfer’); five plants are going to start operating this year in Randegg and Liggeringen (both in Baden-Wuerttemberg), Mengsberg (Hesse), Ellern (Rhineland-Palatinate) and Breklum (Schleswig-Holstein).

Utilities in urban areas are also actively involved, as is evident by the biggest network-integrated solar thermal plant in Germany in Senftenberg in Brandenburg and a new pilot plant by the municipal utility in Duesseldorf. Pauschinger says that ‘we expect the collector area of large-scale systems in Germany to double within the next years. The majority of the currently planned systems are in the segment of urban district heating’.

Denmark, however, is still way ahead. By now there are more than 110 systems with about 700 MW of thermal capacity. The reason why Denmark was able to take the leading position lies also with the political and infrastructural circumstances. On the one hand there are high taxes on fossil fuels like oil and gas. On the other hand district heating is very widely spread in Denmark.

The Danish examples show very clearly how renewable energy and CHP can be combined in a ‘smart’ way on a local scale by deploying large heat storage units. They allow CHP plants and power-to-heat systems to operate optimally.

A new generation in district heating

The above mentioned project examples show trends. Christian Maaß, director of the Hamburg Institute, says the ‘new generation in district heating’ has begun. ‘District heating networks will be the platform for different heat sources: solar thermal, biomass, industrial waste heat, waste incineration, geothermal and heat pumps’.

Simona Weisleder from the Hamburg Institute demonstrated that there are various options for installing solar thermal collectors. She pointed out that there is a lack of willingness to provide agricultural land for large-scale solar thermal plants and presented alternatives. At the ‘Energy Bunker’ in Hamburg-Wilhemsburg, for example, the solar collectors are mounted on an old bunker. They can also be installed on car park buildings, greenhouses, industrial or multifamily buildings, decommissioned landfills, next to wastewater treatment plants and on noise protection walls. Other options include installations along streets or elevated above agricultural land, a concept already being tested in so-called agro-photovoltaic systems, for example. She reported that ‘during workshops we identified a huge interest in win-win solutions’. Participating representatives of state institutions from Styria, Thuringia and the French Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region presented their initiatives for improving the legal framework in this matter as well as for making land more readily available for renewable energy.

The bottom line of the conference was that the technology is ready to be used today. The speakers in the final discussion round called for a stronger political commitment to introduce policies for reducing CO2 emissions. Considering that the prices for fossil energy sources are very low, incentives are necessary to make renewable energy more attractive. One option could be a CO2 tax. In closing, Maaß called upon the industry to remain confident and implement projects despite the less than ideal political circumstances. ‘We have all the good reasons on our side.’

Pictures: Energie Graz (HELIOS), Guido Bröer (Fernheizwerk Puchstraße)

 

Read More

Solar and biomass – a winning solution for district heating

2020-04-03T16:14:26+02:00Apr 27th, 2018|

Biomass may be cheap and carbon-neutral, but a solar upgrade of biomass-fired district heating could further improve efficiency and reduce local emissions. For example, solar heat helps avoid having to start up and shut down wood-chip boilers or operate them at partial load. It can even replace backup fossil fuel systems, which provide district heating networks with energy in summer.

During a December 2017 webinar, held as part of the Horizon 2020 project SDHp2m…From Policy to Market, experts from Sweden and Austria showed promising case studies for a clever combination of biomass and solar thermal in district heating.Jan-Olof Dalenbäck, Project Manager at CIT Energy Management and Professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, explained that a small pellet-fired DH network, below 1 MWth of capacity, was usually not the best candidate for solar integration, since it can be shut down and restarted while retaining high levels of efficiency. ‘If you then add a solar array, including storage – typically the best solution for biomass plant integration – you can’t get relevant benefits from shutting down the boiler. Emission and cost savings are negligible or, at least, not worth it because of the investment needed,’ he added.

Biomass boiler in Sweden benefits from 10 % solar fraction

Larger biomass systems, for instance, between 1 and 100 MWth, have the advantage that their boilers run on wood chips. They take more time to be shut down and restarted, while a partial load results in reduced efficiency, for example, below 20 % of nominal power. To prevent partial loading, the systems are usually equipped with a smaller fossil-fuel boiler or buffer storage. Of course, an alternative solution is the integration of a solar thermal field, which can provide a significant boost to boiler efficiency, reducing emissions and costs.

One such biomass-solar system in Sweden is the DH network set up in 2010 in Ellös, in the Västra Götaland county. It consists of 4 MWth of biomass boilers, a 1 000 m2 solar array and 200 m3 of buffer storage. The average annual solar fraction is around 10 %, and the main benefit of solar integration is the option to switch off the biomass boiler in summer, except for a few rainy or cloudy days in a row. The size of the solar system is planned to be scaled up to 2 000 m2 soon.

Austria: High potential for solar upgrades of DH plants

Solar-assisted biomass DH was quite common in Austria, Moritz Schubert from Austrian-based S.O.L.I.D. said. Sixteen of the 32 SDH plants in operation across the country have been combined with a bio-energy system. Their solar arrays range from 100 m2 to 7 000 m2.

One factor encouraging these kinds of developments is the national subsidy programme for large solar thermal plants above 100 m2. Launched in 2010, it has recently been extended to include plants of up to 10,000 m2. It provides 40 % of the investment cost, and both SMEs and designers of innovative systems can get another 5 % on top. Two new SDH systems of between 7 000 m2 and 8 000 m2 are planned to be set up this year.

Schubert also mentioned a biomass-solar DH system in Mürzzuschlag, a town in the northeast of Austria’s Styria region. The plant has solar-based production costs of 35 EUR/MWh, which is slightly below the biomass values of 37 to 38 EUR/MWh.

Over the last 20 years, Austria’s countryside has seen the installation of more than 2 000 biomass DH networks, which makes it quite difficult to find a suitable location for a new grid. Instead, solar collector suppliers should focus on solar upgrades of existing biomass DH. ‘Moreover, some of them have 20- to 25-year-old boilers,’ Schubert said, ‘which should be replaced to meet new efficiency requirements. Some also no longer benefit from CHP feed-in tariffs, so I see great potential for integrating solar arrays into existing networks.’

Replacing fossil fuel boilers for DH summer load

Samuel Knabl from Austrian Institute AEE INTEC said that a survey among DH utilities analysed the main reasons for integrating solar thermal into biomass DH. His interview partners emphasised that solar could replace backup fossil fuel boilers used exclusively in summer to avoid partial load operation. The DH utilities added that solar thermal could also reduce local emissions, such as dust and nitrogen oxides, created during biomass combustion, which would increase public acceptance of biomass DH.

Additionally, Knabl underlined that Austria had a programme to recover up to 35 % of the investment in a biomass DH installation. The incentive required that overall network efficiency exceeded 75 % – not an easy objective for small networks in areas of low population density, where long pipes are necessary. Solar thermal could help meet the target. In that case, the biomass incentive could serve as indirect support for SDH systems.

Riccardo Battisti (Text and Foto)

CIT Energy Management
S.O.L.I.D.
AEE INTEC

Read More

SDH plant awarded in Sweden

2018-10-15T17:25:09+02:00Apr 25th, 2018|

Ystad Energi was awarded the “Solar prize” for their solar heating plant on Ystad Arena. The plant, with just more than 500 m2 of flat plate collectors, is designed to feed solar heat into Ystad district heating system.

The solar plant on Ystad Arena is connected to the primary district heat distribution system via heat exchangers.  When the solar collectors generate more heat than needed in the Arena, the solar heat will automatically be used in adjacent buildings via the district heating system, in a similar way as electricity is used in a grid-connected solar PV plant. There are already about 25 systems with 200 to 1 000 m2 of solar collectors connected in a similar way during the period from 2000 to 2017.

Svensk Solenergi (Solar Energy Association of Sweden) has awarded good example solar (heat and PV) plants and important achievements in solar energy since 2004.  The plant award 2018 was given to Ystad Energi (municipal DH company) thanks to a new system design with improved controls and performance. The new plant in Ystad is thus an inspiring good example for other building owners and district heating companies.

The Award motivation: ”Solar heating plants can be connected in our district heating systems just like solar PV plants are connected in our electric grids.  The systems have been developed so that the generated solar heat can be used to improve a district heated buildings energy performance (according to EPBD) and /or so that the generated heat can be sold to other district heating customers.  The plant at Ystad Arena, built without financial support, is an excellent example of how solar heat can be used in district heating systems – in a national, as well as an international, context.”

Photo: SavoSolar

Read More

Big Solar Germany: Utility-scale solar heat at record-low 36 EUR/MWh

2018-06-04T15:39:15+02:00Apr 20th, 2018|

Operators of several gas-driven combined cycle power plants, or CCPPs, have notified the German Federal Network Agency of their systems’ final shutdown. These plants are no longer economically viable, as they have been running ever fewer hours because of a high proportion of cost-effective renewable grid electricity. Their shutdown will create a shortage of supply in district heating networks providing thermal energy to German municipalities. Utility-scale solar thermal plants equipped with seasonal storage could help close the gap at heat prices of around 36 EUR/MWh, Christian Holter said. Holter is the Managing Director of Austrian turnkey system supplier S.O.L.I.D., which has carried out feasibility studies on behalf of several European cities.

Read the interview on solarthermalworld.org.

Read More

Solar district heating market grows by 35 per cent

2018-06-04T09:54:45+02:00Apr 11th, 2018|

Graz, 11 April 2018. The 5th International Solar District Heating Conference in Graz starts with record attendance. Inspired by an annual market growth of 35 per cent in Europe, 350 experts have come together in Graz, Austria, for the 5th International Solar District Heating Conference. On 11 and 12 April 2018 the scientists and market stakeholders discuss the state of the art and strategies for the further development of the solar district heating market.

The branch looks forward to a bright future for their business field. Werner Lutsch, president of the European district heating association Euroheat&Power, expects that solar thermal will – for the first time – contribute more than 1 terawatt hour (1 terawatt hour = 1 billion kilowatt hours) to the district heating supply this year. According to market evaluations the solar thermal capacity connected to district heating will rise up to 240 terawatt hours in 2050. This will represent 15 per cent of the European district heating demand.Considering the average market increase in the last five years of 35 per cent annually, Lutsch is confident that the solar thermal and district heating industries will achieve this goal. Particularly as both industries work together to achieve this goal, said the president of the association at the conference. ‘The solar thermal and the district heating industries have established a reliable cooperation.’

Not only Denmark, the forerunner in the field of solar district heating, makes progress. In Denkmark there are more than 100 cities and communities with solar district heating plants – mostly with shares of 15 to 60 per cent of the local district heating supply. However, other countries like Austria, Germany, France and Sweden catch up. The well-proven solar district heating technology is being more and more applied in these countries – with a broad variety of scale: There are installations which supply solar thermal heat for urban quarters, there are so called bioenergy villages where solar thermal plants supply the entire heating demand in summer time, and there are huge plants built on fields with up to 100 megawatt thermal capacity as in the Danish city Silkeborg.

Compared to the previous conference in Billund, Denmark, which took place in 2016, the number of participants is twice as high this year. The 350 participants come from 33 countries. The conference managers, Christian Fink from AEE Institute for Sustainable Energy (AEE INTEC) in Graz and Thomas Pauschinger from the Steinbeis Research Institute Solites in Stuttgart, Germany, judge this a very positive signal for the use of solar thermal in local and district heating networks. Pauschinger emphasized that the EU commission reliably supports this kind of international cooperation for the further development of solar district heating. ‘We have been able to successfully develop this conference also due to the support of the EU commission, starting in 2009 and lasting until today.’ Fink said: ‘It is the goal of the conference to bring together business experts and decision makers who are interested in using the technology and to make use of this impulse for new projects.’

Two excursions on Wednesday afternoon to solar district heating plants in the Graz area were an appreciated opportunity for networking and discussions. It is not by accident that Graz was chosen for the conference this year. The second biggest city in Austria plans to completely decarbonize its district heating network. For a CO2-neutral supply a project called ‘Big Solar’ is in preparation. 450 000 square meters solar collectors shall be installed. Christian Purrer, board speaker of Energie Steiermark emphasized at the conference: ‘It is our goal to significantly increase the share of renewable energy in the heat supply in the coming years in order to combine security of supply with even more sustainability. Solar thermal in combination with big thermal storage tanks, as in our project Big Solar, play a leading role in it.’

Fotos: Energie Graz (HELIOS Anlage), Guido Bröer (Fernheizwerk Puchstrasse Anlage)

 

Read More
© | Copyright by Solar District Heating (SDH) | All Rights Reserved
X
Go to Top