Industrial Solar: Green light for development of groundbreaking solar process heating and cooling system

Industrial Solar GmbH, the Bavarian Centre for Applied Energy Research and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems partner up in a consortium for the German government-funded research project SunBeltChiller. The project aims to develop and demonstrate an innovative multi-stage solar thermal energy system for cooling and process heat – a system of severe importance for the sunbelt region suffering from increasing ambient temperatures and water scarcity due to climate change. Industrial Solar's funding volume for the project supported by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi) amounts to € 209.000.

In the research project SunBeltChiller, which runs for 4 years from November 1st, 2020, the project partners Industrial Solar, ZAE Bayern and Fraunhofer ISE will develop an innovative multi-stage solar thermal energy system for cooling and process heat. The system to be developed aims to address the challenges of a rapidly increasing cooling demand and scarce water resources wasted on cooling in the sunbelt region. The project shall demonstrate the functionality and efficiency of the energy system under real conditions, supplying heat and cold while abstaining from water evaporation and harnessing the power of the sun. Such solar energy systems are economically attractive, especially for higher power classes from approx. 1 MW. This power class is the target for a later commercial exploitation of the results achieved in the project. All functionalities and interdependencies will be mapped within the demonstration project so that generalizable methods and statements can be derived for different system sizes in different parts of the sunbelt region. In addition to the extensive testing of the system in the laboratory, this system will also prove its suitability for practical use in a real application in the further course of the project.
The German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi) supports the project with a funding volume of € 1,3 Mio. Industrial Solar will receive a support of € 209.000.