Low Temperature Solar Thermal

Production and Distribution of Electricity and Heat

Solar collectors are particular types of heat exchangers, which absorb solar radiation and convert it into useful heat carried by a fluid. A variety of thermal collectors are available on the market that can be classified into two main groups: non-concentrators and concentrators. In the first group, flat plate collectors (FPC) are the most widespread technology followed by vacuum tube collectors (ETC), while examples of concentrators are parabolic collectors (CPC), linear Fresnel reflectors (LFR) and parabolic dishes (PDC). During 2019, 145,300 units of panels were installed in Italy, which correspond to 165,300 m² of occupied surface and about 115.7 MW equivalent power (MW_eq). At the end of 2019, around 4.3 million cumulative square meters of solar thermal collectors have been installed in Italy, mostly flat collectors for residential hot water production, with the overall production of solar thermal energy slowly growing from 179 ktoe in 2014, to 200 in 2016, 218 in 2018, and 228 in 2019.

The solar collector’s life span varies between 20-30 years, and it depends on the quality of the maintenance procedures during its operating time. The replacement of a traditional boiler gas with a

thermal solar collectors guarantee a reduction of 62 kg di CO2 per one GJ produced

25-07-2022

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