Solar Heat for Industrial Processes (SHIP)
January 2024 - PDF 0.17MB

Solar Heat for Industrial Processes (SHIP) has enormous potential in industrial decarbonization, addressing the industrial sector’s total final low and medium temperature heat consumption, corresponding to 12% of the total final energy demand worldwide. The major share of the energy needed in this sector is used for heating and cooling production processes at temperatures up to 400 °C and is almost exclusively provided with fossil fuels, as shown in Figure 1. SHIP technologies are market-ready to significantly reduce CO2 emissions in these applications using non-concentrating solar thermal collectors (up to 150 °C) and concentrating collectors (up to 400 °C). Solar applications for even higher temperatures are under development but not the subject of this paper.

Calculation Method for Tracked Concentrating Solar Collectors - Technical Note
May 2023 - PDF 0.29MB
Editor: Andreas Häberle

Energy statistics usually include data on the amount of solar thermal energy installed in terms of thermal power (kWth). While solar thermal installations often are only characterized by the installed collector area (m²). To address this inconsistency between data, a simple conversion factor is needed to convert the installed area (m²) into the approximate corresponding installed thermal power (kWth). Such a conversion factor exists for stationary solar thermal collectors but has yet to be established for tracked concentrating collectors. This paper details a conversion factor for tracked concentrating solar thermal collectors developed in the IEA SHC Task 64 / IEA SolarPACES Task IV on Solar ProcessHeat and the underlying reasoning.