de-risking
South Africa: Solar Green Beer Production Creates High IRR
South Africa's solar process heat installations remain profitable when they have to compete against other heat sources, such as diesel, paraffin, petrol or gas, the Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies (CRSES) at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, has concluded in a...
India: Process Heat System Monitoring Shows Fair Performance but Room for Improvement
The SoPro India project has scientifically monitored two solar water heating systems for a year with the aim of presenting reliable data on system performance (see the attached PDFs). The measured 20 % solar efficiency would put the ROI between 2 and 3 years, depending on the development of...
Mexico: Solar Process Heat Beats Fossil-Fuel Boiler in Energy Cost
Mexican company Inventive Power helps industrial customers to reduce their energy costs, which in turn reduces pollution in major cities. "Besides traffic, industrial boilers are responsible for much of the pollution in urban areas," Ángel Mejía Santiago explained during the Intersolar...
Tunisia: Good Hotel and Hospital Investment Opportunities
A great deal of sunlight, large investment grants and subsidised energy prices: These are the factors determining the profitability of big solar thermal systems in Tunisia, according to the authors of the study Opportunities for solar thermal systems in the tertiary and industrial...
IEA SHC: Levelised Cost of Heat and the Calculations behind It
The main objective of IEA SHC Task 52, Solar Thermal in Energy Supply Systems in Urban Environments, is to call attention to both the technical and economic aspects of solar heating and cooling usage in densely populated urban areas. Urban planners and commercial clients want to...
Germany: Solar Heat Costs Less than Oil and Gas in Multi-Family Buildings
Solar thermal is economically viable in Germany in multi-family buildings – that is the clear message of the Excel-based tool which German solar thermal system supplier Remeha, a brand of the BDR Thermea Group, uses to calculate solar water heater performance at multi-family dwellings. The...
Italy: Solar Steam for Cheese Production
Direct steam production, 50,000 litres of diesel saved per year and the advantage of the Italian incentive scheme for renewable heat: All these favourable conditions allowed a small dairy in Sardinia to choose a concentrated solar thermal plant with Fresnel collectors for generating 200 °C...
India: Solar Process Heat with less than 18-Month Payback Period
"Where there's a will, there's a way" is the slogan at Sharman Shawls, one of India's leading garment industry and export companies. Based in Punjab state in northern India, Sharman Shawls uses diesel to meet the hot water requirements for dyeing, bleaching and washing garments. The...
Italy: First Solar District Heating System, 990 m² big
Finally, solar district heating has reached Italy too: Utility Varese Risorse, which is part of the environmental multi-utility group A2A, brought its solar thermal plant into operation on 19 May. The idea for this project, which also came about thanks to support from Intelligent Energy...
Spain: Study Demonstrates Technical and Economic Viability of Barcelona's Solar District Heating Grid
The Spanish Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE) has finalised its study on the technical and economic viability of incorporating solar thermal technology into urban district heating and cooling networks. The case study was carried out in Barcelona and concludes that solar...
Germany: Solar-Heated Gas Pressure Regulating System with 7 % Benefit
Enertracting, located in Kassel, Germany, offers solar heat as an Energy Service Company (ESCO). Its first flagship project has been a gas pressure regulating system, for which the company presented some financial and operational data at a workshop organised by the Thuringian Ministry of...
Germany: Excel-Based IRR Commercial Project Calculations
German Fresnel collector manufacturer Industrial Solar is experiencing an increasing demand from clients all around the world: "Five years ago, we received two requests per month. Now, we receive around 50 each month and the requests are more serious," Tobias Schwind, who is one of the...