Posted: September 22, 2013
23 September 2013. SHC 2013, the 2nd International Conference on Solar Heating and Cooling for Buildings and Industry opens today in Freiburg, Germany. The conference presents the state-of-the-art in solar heating and cooling as well as solar buildings. Scientific and industrial experts from over 30 countries share their knowledge in over 100 presentations and keynotes.
“The technological development in solar thermal is really amazing”, says Werner Weiss, chairman of the IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (IEA SHC).” And SHC 2013, which opens today, shows the great advancements we have made. Take for example thermo-chemical heat storage. It allows us to store much more solar heat in small volumes. Due to their reasonable size, these heat stores will allow the design of 100% solar heating systems for buildings and thus replace large amounts of the gas, oil and electricity used for heating.”
The conference, which was first held last year in San Francisco, covers the whole spectrum of solar heating, cooling and solar buildings. Zero- and plus-energy buildings are a recurring topic throughout the conference, as are hybrid systems, and the use of solar thermal energy in conjunction with other renewable energy technologies, such as photovoltaics and ground-source heat pumps.
SHC 2013 is held in co-operation with the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation (ESTIF), and includes many industry and market-related topics, ranging from product certification to public support policies and from national market reports to discussions on the effects of building regulation on solar thermal.
“We are happy to help provide an industry specific view to the SHC 2013 conference”, says the Secretary General of ESTIF, Xavier Noyon. “Creating the necessary framework conditions is as important to the solar thermal industry as the technological development. Therefore, we are glad to discuss here, how to bring them about.”
The conference is organised by Freiburg based PSE AG. “We are thrilled to have so many of the top solar thermal experts here in Freiburg”, says Andreas Häberle, CEO of PSE. “We believe in the open exchange of experiences and information to accelerate development. Looking at the expected 400 participants of SHC 2013, I am confident that the conference will again achieve this goal”.
Further information:
• Conference website: shc2013.iea-shc.org
• IEA SHC: www.iea-shc.org
• ESTIF: www.estif.org
• PSE: www.pse.de