Energy Efficient Buildings
The industrial and commercial sector is responsible for 28 per cent of energy consumption in Europe, but it has yet to really embrace the use of solar technology as a means of cheap, renewable energy. The InSun project has been looking to change this by carrying out large-scale demonstrations to prove that the technology is both reliable and financially viable
InSun: Large scale solar thermal systems for industry
Solar technology has made leaps and bounds in the past decade, with improvements
in uptake has increased throughout
efficiency meaning the
world. Its rapid rise to become one of the cheapest methods of harnessing renewable energy has seen its use in residential settings soar, but the same cannot be said for its use in industry. “The main problem is that
industrial
processes need to run continuously without disturbances,” says Dr Dirk Pietruschka of the Stuttgart Technology University of Applied Sciences. “It is still a relatively new technology, especially within industrial settings, and so companies hesitate to try it out because of lack of proven examples.
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Many also target a payback time of about three years whereas in reality the system can deliver energy for up to 20-25 years.” Large-scale solar thermal systems for
industrial process heat applications could in fact be a huge opportunity for Europe to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. The industrial and commercial sector is responsible for 28 per cent of the energy consumption in Europe, with two thirds of this energy being consumed for heating applications. Although small-scale systems have been deployed widely around the world, larger systems such as for use in factories are still rarely used. To try and facilitate the uptake of these systems in industrial settings, the InSun project has
been running large-scale demonstrations that have provided evidence to companies that this technology is worth looking at. The aim of the InSun project has been to
demonstrate the reliability and quality of large-scale solar thermal systems for different types of industrial process heat applications on medium and higher temperature levels. “We have been looking to demonstrate to industry that these systems can be relied upon and can save money in the long run,” says Pietruschka. Three different types of collector
systems have been demonstrated and compared: improved flat plate collectors and smaller parabolic trough collectors as temperature booster for an Austrian meat
Insight Publishers | Projects
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