How is the market for large-scale solar thermal systems developing? We have compiled and evaluated responses from companies around the world. There are attractive regional markets worldwide for large solar systems.

When asked what the five most important markets were, the respondents named 46 different countries. Germany was named most frequently, followed by Spain – then came Italy and the United Arab Emirates. The fact that so many companies do business successfully in Germany can be attributed to its large and relatively advanced solar thermal market. The large number of companies that identified ­Germany as their most important market can be chalked up, at least in part, to the fact that of the 31 companies taking part in the survey, six were ­German.

In terms of incentives, however, Germany was far from the top of the list among the respondents. ­Austria and Switzerland were cited most frequently as the countries with the best government support programmes for large solar thermal systems. But ­Korea, Italy, and Lebanon are also considered ­countries with attractive incentive programmes. 

Just what exactly constitutes a large-scale system is not easy to define. This survey is based on the very broad definition of a large-scale systems, which it characterises as any system with more than 20 m² of collector area.

The largest market segment belongs to the smallest large-scale systems, those that range from 20 to 100 m². On average, the surveyed companies said that nearly three-fourths of the large-scale systems they sell were smaller than 100 m². The 100 to 1,000 m² range accounted for some 20 % of sales. Systems approaching the MW capacity level are rare.

Broad distribution of applications

Nearly half of all large-scale solar thermal systems provide heat for multifamily homes. Most of those systems are designed to produce domestic hot water (31 %). Combi systems – systems that use ­energy harvested from the sun for space heating – ­comprise 16 % of the total. Other key applications are in the tourism industry (12 %) and the health sector (9 %). Swimming pool heating (9 %) is closely linked to the tourism sector. The remaining 10 % includes district heating, commercial applications and schools, as well as agricultural uses. ­Agriculture often requires heat for drying processes, an ideal application for air collector systems. This segment is the home turf of air collector specialists Sunsiaray of the USA and Cona Entwicklungs- und Handelsge­sellschaft of Austria. Prisons and military housing facilities also have a high hot water demand. NUR Solar Systems equipped a Jordanian military housing complex with 1,500 m² of collector area. “This system is the largest system in Jordan for residential use,” says the company’s Business ­Development Executive Laith Zatar.

An important factor affecting the demand for large-scale solar heating systems is the uncertainty with regard to the price development in the fossil ­fuels market. A solar heating installation has an expected lifetime of at least 25 years. In addition to the investment in the installation itself, the ordinary cost of operation and maintenance during this period has to be factored in, whereas the energy from the sun is, of course, free of charge. Security and minimal risk have become strong selling points.

There are also huge regional differences in applications. In Europe, the multifamily home sector is particularly strong. The tourism sector in the Mediterranean and the Arab world has shown a far greater interest in solar thermal for Hotels. Process heat, on the other hand, is much more frequently cited by Asian companies as an important segment for solar thermal.

Costs vary

How much do large scale systems cost? Vladimir Tsintsiper, Chief of Technology for German manufacturer Alpha-InnoTec Sun estimates specific system costs in Central Europe at 500 to 600 €/m². The Siko Solar system for the multifamily passive-house ­residential building is also in this range. Some systems can run double that cost or more, however. ­Arcon offers its system, including a seasonal storage tank, for 300 €/m². Systems that heat up water ­directly in the collectors are even cheaper. Himin ­Solar of North Korea installed a system in a hotel complex for just 200 €/m². NUR Solar Systems supplied its system to the military residential complex at the unbeatable price of just 43 €/m². The return on investment for that system is a mere 20 months. That is an amortisation period Central European system providers can only dream of. At Siko Solar the amortisation time is 12 years. Even at that rate, however, a kWh of solar heat costs just 5.3 €-ct. That is clearly less than what Central Europeans pay for heat from natural gas.

Jens-Peter Meyer

A much more detailed version of this article was published in Sun & Wind Energy 6/2014. Subscribers can download the full version for free in our download section.

 

http://www.sunwindenergy.com/solar-thermal/big-ones-are-coming