Industrial Solar: Alliance for market introduction of solar process heat in Australia

The companies Industrial Solar GmbH from Freiburg / Germany and Gasco Pty Ltd from Melbourne / Australia have signed a cooperation agreement to jointly develop the market for solar process heat systems for industrial applications.

During January an extreme heatwave hit Australia and temperatures reached up to 50°C. All-time temperature records fell in many parts of Australia. At the same time Australia continues to have high per capita greenhouse gas emissions. Industry is responsible for one third of total final energy consumption, with the major share being used for process heating. Thus, industrial process heating is of utmost relevance and the use of solar thermal collectors for industrial applications is an obvious step in the right direction.

Industrial Solar's linear Fresnel collector can provide heat with temperatures up to 400 °C in a power range up to 30 MW. It can be operated with pressurized water or thermal oil – or it can directly generate steam, which is an important heat transfer medium in industry.

Gasco is a leading engineering company that designs and manufactures process heating equipment including thermal oil heaters, boilers, waste heat recovery systems and other energy related products and systems including expertise in balance of plant and system integration. Australia is one of the best countries in the world having abundant solar energy resource and is as such a natural and very promising market for solar technologies. Thus a new or retrofit facility involving fossil fuel based process heat partially or wholly offset by solar process heat when available is the most cost-efficient and environmentally friendly solution. Together the two companies can offer hybrid solar-fossil fired process heat systems to industrial customers in Australia and neighbouring countries – giving industry the opportunity to reduce their emissions.