
Proceedings of ISES Solar World Congress 2007: Solar Energy and Human Settlement
800
The present developments include mainly large-scale plants
with diurnal storage for residential heating, but also industries
and heat driven cooling applications in Southern Europe. A
continued interest to develop plants with seasonal storage
remains mainly in Denmark and Germany [2].
The no of plants in different countries is shown in TABLE
1. Sweden is still the leading country with a total of 22
plants in operation, although eight plants, the first from
1979, have been closed after 10-20 years of operation and
evaluation. The distribution of plants related to year of
commission is shown in Fig. 1. There was a negative
trend [1], but there seems to be an increased interest the last
two years with so far eight new plants in 2006 and 2007.
TABLE 1: LARGE SCALE PLANTS IN EUROPE
Country First Oper. Down
Sweden 1979 22 8
Germany 1993 18 1
Austria 1995 14 2
Greece 1986 14
Spain 1999 13
Denmark 1988 10
The Netherlands 1985 8
Switzerland 1995 7
Italy 2002 3
France 1999 3
Poland 2004 3
Others 2000 4 1
Total 119 12
European solar heating & cooling plants >500 m2
0
5
10
15
79 84 89 94 99 04
Closed (12)
Cooling (9)
Heating (110)
Fig. 1: Solar heating and cooling plants with >500 m
2
of
solar collector area built in Europe.
The oldest plant still in operation is from 1984 but the
majority of plants have been in operation for 10 years or
less.
2. APPLICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGIES
The majority of the large-scale plants supply heat to
residential buildings. The largest solar heating plants (>2
MW
th
) are listed in Table 2.
TABLE 2: SOLAR HEATING PLANTS IN EU
Plant,
Year in operation, Country
Coll.area
(m²)
Size
(MW
th
)
Marstal, 1996, DK 18 300 12,8
Kungälv, 2000, SE 10 000 7,0
Brædstrup, 2007, DK 8 000 5,6
Nykvarn, 1984, SE 7 500 5,2
Graz (AEVG), 2006, AT 5 600 3,9
Falkenberg, 1989, SE 5 500 3,8
Neckarsulm, 1997, DE 5 470 3,8
Crailsheim, 2003, DE 5 470 3,8
Ulsted, 2006, DK 5 000 3,5
Ærøskøping, 1998, DK 4 900 3,4
Friedrichshafen, 1996, DE 4 050 2,8
Rise, 2001, DK 3 575 2,5
Ry, 1988, DK 3 040 2,1
Hamburg, 1996, DE 3 000 2,1
Schalkwijk, 2002, NL 2 900 2,0
München, 2007, DE 2 900 2,0
Typical operating temperatures range from low 30°C to
high around 100°C (water storage). Two thirds of these
plants are connected to existing buildings, especially in
Sweden, Denmark and Austria. A large part of the plants
in Sweden and Austria are built in connection to wood fuel
fired heating plants. Non-residential plants are e.g.
installed in industries and commercial buildings.
The majority of the plants are designed to cover the
summer heat load - i.e. hot water and heat distribution
losses - using diurnal water storages, but 20 plants are
equipped with seasonal storages and cover a larger part of
the load. The seasonal storages comprise water in