European Solar Thermal Industry Federation

ESTIF at EUROSUN Conference 2016 – Palma de Mallorca

Date: 31 Oct 2016
Category: Solar Heat News

Organized by the International Solar Energy Society (ISES), and the University of the Balearic Islands, this event was the 11th International Conference on Solar Energy for Buildings and Industry - EuroSun, the ISES European solar energy congress. This year’s event, held in Palme de Mallorca between the 12 and 14 of October, focused on 11 specific themes, most of which dealt partly or exclusively with solar thermal.

A large audience of industry, researchers and professionals gathered to discuss the outlook and most recent developments of the solar thermal technology, in a mix of open debates, oral presentations and poster presentations.

Hot topics of the conference were the cooperation/competition between solar thermal and PV, the use of PV in combination with heat pumps and the electrification of the heating sector. Additional recurring topics were cost reductions, the use of polymeric materials, the potential of solar thermal in district heating.

The debates and panels also showed there is a great appetite from industry and market players to play an increasing role in large scale installations providing heat for industrial processes, thus confirming the potential of solar thermal in this area.

ESTIF President, Robin Welling, participated on a plenary panel debate on the 13th, and illustrated the potential role of solar thermal in decarbonising the EU, while promoting ESTIF’s role as industry representative body. He also stressed the importance of avoiding a wild electrification of heating sector, while underlining how the future energy mix can be decided via a fair competition among clean technologies, provided that a level playing field is set, and no direct or indirect subsidies are still granted to fossil fuels.

ESTIF policy officer, Stefano Lambertucci, also presented in a parallel session some of the results of ESTIF-led FROnT project (www.front-rhc.eu), in particular a survey carried out among EU citizens from 5 different Member States on key purchasing fac

tors for heating and cooling systems.

Overall, EuroSun participants agreed solar thermal is a vital technology in the path towards the full decarbonisation of our economies, both at European and at global level.

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