Investigation of Selected Solar Process Heat Applications Regarding Their Technical Requirements for System Integration
Abstract
Many studies have been carried out for different countries or regions to estimate the potential for the utilization of solar heat for industrial processes (Vannoni et al., 2008). All studies arrive at the conclusion that the industrial sector is one of the most promising application areas for solar heating systems within the near future. This is based on the facts that the industry sector accounts for a large amount of consumed thermal energy with a relatively continuous demand over the year and a reasonable share at a temperature range below 150 °C. A recent potential study for Germany (Lauterbach et al., 2011a) showed the large number of industry sectors and processes that seem to be suitable for the integration of solar heating systems. Besides industry sectors in general that have with a significant heat demand below 150 °C, processes such as cleaning, washing, pre-heating, etc. were identified as promising application areas for the supply of solar process heat. Based on the research findings of the last years, Heß and Oliva (2010) tried to identify priority applications within a recently published planning guideline for solar process heat systems, to simplify the planning procedure for solar process heat systems with respect to dimensioning.