LONDON, England, 2004-12-01 Refocus Weekly A number of organizations in Britain have proposed the introduction of a legislated Green Heat obligation to encourage the use of renewable energies for non-electric applications.

Brussels, 24 November 2004. SP, the Swedish National Testing and Research Institute, announced that Sweden will lift the requirements on accelerated ageing tests, in order to facilitate foreign companies' access to the Swedish market. This decision followed a request from ESTIF and will enter in force from 1 January 2005.

Brussels/Berlin, 24 November 2004. The international solar thermal industry is becoming increasingly interconnected. The heightened need for an international exchange of ideas is met by the 2nd European Solar Thermal Industry Conference, estec2005, which is taking place from 21 to 22 June 2005 in Freiburg/Germany. ESTIF, the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation, has called for papers to be submitted for the conference. The focus is on international solar thermal energy markets,...

Berlin, 17 November 2004. After intensive talks, the Board and managing directors of the two leading solar associations in Germany, BSi and UVS, have recommended to start a merger procedure. BSi members already agreed to the merger.

10 November 2004. The International Energy Agency’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme and major solar thermal trade associations publish new statistics on the use of solar thermal energy. The new data – expressed for the first time in GWth, rather than in square meters of installed collector area – shows the global installed capacity to be 70 GWth (70.000 MWth).