swe spanien thermie - Sun & Wind Energy · ta Schäfer, the Austrian manufacturer Sonnenkraft’s...

The locomotive of the Spanish renewables: Large wind farms fi nd ideal locations at the extensive plateaus.Photo: Ecotècnica

70

Imported gas is one of the major resources of the fast growing Spanish energy demand.Photo: Dierk Jensen/Agenda

Thermosiphon systems can mainly be seen in the south of Spain. Photo: Solahart

S P A I N S P E C I A L

Sun & Wind Energy 1/2007

Photovoltaic tracking sys-tems are on trend in Spain. Therefore providers like the Spanish company Acciona Energía grow fast and sometimes double or even triple their yearly installed PV power. Photo: Acciona Energía

Energy consumption in Spain is rising far faster than av-erage when compared to other European countries. Electricity generation alone has risen by almost 50 % in the last seven years. This still growing hunger for ener-gy is being met by Spain through the building of new

power plant capacity and increased energy imports. This is causing problems.

Handicap number one: Spain is to 80 % dependant on en-ergy imports. Inland resources are mostly comprised of coal and brown coal, as well as hydropower. The most important source of energy for electricity generation is coal, with a share of 30 %, followed by nuclear power and a rapidly growing energy generation using imported natural gas. Renewable energies had a share of almost 17 % of gross electricity gener-ation in 2005, which equates to approximately 6 % of primary energy consumption [1]. The level of own-generation provid-ed by this energy mix in the country has been decreasing for many years. The growing dependency on imports in Spain is now recognised as being a problem across all political camps. A further handicap: Through the growth in energy demand and the high use of coal and imported natural gas, Spain is a long way from reducing its CO2 emissions according to EU de-mands.

Renewable energies provide an answer to these challeng-es. The technical and climatic potential, economic pressure and political support for an expansion of renewable energies are undoubtedly present. In accordance with this, the support plan passed in 1999 contained the target that at least 12 % of primary energy consumption should be covered by renew-able energies by 2010. The share in electricity generation was even envisaged to rise to 30 % in this period.

71

Failed targets newly setSpain is to 80 % dependant on energy imports.

The growing dependency is now recognised

as being a problem across all political camps.

The new renewable energy plan sets more

likely to reach targets and make up an invest-

ment volume of approximately € 24 billion

across all the renewable energy sectors.

Spain special at a glance

Solar thermal in Spain:● Solar obligations forcing

upturn page 74● Solar cooling combats

summer heat page 78PV in Spain:● Large systems for a (pres-

ently) small market page 80Wind energy in Spain:● Skid marks in the boom page 88● Interview with Jordi Torres,

director of sales and market-ing of Ecotècnia page 90



http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&p=/gQPU.&search=approximately

In order to achieve this ambitious aim, renewable energies would have to have grown by 10 % every year. This has only succeeded for wind power – the planned target for 2010 had already been 90 % met at the end of 2004. In the last few years, growth rates of market vol-ume have been between 20 and 40 % annually here.

Things have so far looked gloomy, however, for so-lar power and biomass. Growth here has been so slow

that these sectors have endangered the reaching of the expansion targets. The solar thermal market has missed the envisaged growth rates by a wide margin. Between 1998 and 2004 solar thermals achieved an annual growth rate of approximately 15 % on average (see table page 75), but because of the low starting po-sition 40 % would have been necessary. Although pho-tovoltaics managed a growth rate of 100 % at the last count (see table page 82), this was from an extremely low starting point. The gap between the home and world markets is especially apparent with photovolta-ics. As a module manufacturer, Spain is in second place in Europe behind Germany, but the majority – over 90 % – goes abroad due to the low demand on the home market.

And fi nally, biomass, on which so many people’s hopes were pinned, achieved an average of just 1 % growth up to 2005 – and yet it was to have made up the largest share in reaching the 12 % target for 2010.

As a result of this insuffi cient development, the sup-port plan was amended in August 2005. The new plan developed various scenarios. The scenario seen as be-ing the most likely one – and thus also the offi cial gov-ernment target – assumes almost the same global tar-get as the old plan, but with a dramatic reallocation of weightings within the diff erent sectors (see table on the left). The biggest capital gain in Spain is now expected from wind power. It has already proved in the past that it can defi nitely take on the role of the locomotive.

The targets for solar energy have also been raised signifi cantly: The installed power for photovoltaics is now to reach 400 MWp by 2010, and solar-thermal elec-tricity generation 500 MWel. The target for collector space for solar thermal use has been raised to almost 5 million m2 (3,430 MWth). The importance of biomass has been reduced. The new plan now contains more realistic growth targets well below the old level. Experts still question the feasibility here, however. At current prices the expansion targets in the new support plan make up an investment volume of approximately € 24 billion across all the renewable energy sectors. ✹

Jörn Iken

[1] German Energy Agency (Dena): »Praxisreport Solarmarkt Spanien«, Berlin, October 2006, www.dena.de. This publication is not available in English.

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Share of renewable energies of the primary energy consumption 2010

12.1 %

Share of renewable energies of the electricity consumption 2010

30.3 %

Installed wind power by 2010 20,155 MW

Installed solar thermal power by 2010 3,430 MWth

Installed photovoltaics power by 2010 400 MWp

Installed solar thermal electricity generation by 2010

500 MWel

Installed biomass electricity gen-eration including co-fi ring by 2010 (without biogas)

3,112 MWel

Targets for 2010 postulated in the Renewable Energy Plan (Plan de Energías Renovables

PER for Spain 2005-2010) from August 2005 [1]. A sum-mary of the plan PER in Eng-

lish can be downloaded at www.idae.es.

A solar electric car: The asso-ciation for the popularisation

of sustainable technologies (ADTS) in Barcelona uses

this vehicle to make aware of the use of the solar energy as

alternative to petroleum. Photo: ADTS, www.adts.info



Spain is expecting a boom in solar thermal energy. »Due to the new building directive we expect a signifi cant boost in sales from January 2008 on-wards,« announces Herman Rens, manager of Solahart Europe. »This has to do with the fact

that the visible eff ects of the new directive need time to be implemented.« In the meantime, 7 % of Solahart’s in-ternational sales have come from Spain. According to Gabriel Steinhardt, Chromagen España’s CEO and spe-cial senior advisor, Francisco Torres, the market oppor-tunities will continue to grow towards an exponential boom. The company aims to enlarge its distribution chan-nels all over the territory. According to Haggai Shefer, Chromagen Group’s CEO, the sales in the Spanish mar-ket are growing at an annual growth rate of 30 %.

Last summer, the Government enacted the new build ing technical code, the Código Técnico de la Edifi -cación (CTE). From now on all new buildings and all buildings that are renovated must get between 30 % and 70 % of their hot water from solar energy. The pro-vision can bring a reversal in the solar energy industry in Spain – for which it has already waited a long time. Despite the enormous potential, the country was only fourth in the European rankings with 369 MW of in-stalled solar thermal power (collector area: 527,000 m2) at the end of 2005 – far behind the leading trio of Ger-many, Greece and Austria. With the Renewable Energy Plan Spain has set itself a big target. It wants to have in-stalled solar ener gy collectors with a heating power of 3,430 MWth (4.9 million m2) by 2010. For this to succeed the industry will have to greatly increase its sales. It will have to sell more than 3,000 MWth (4.4 million m2) in the next fi ve years. A huge task, in view of previous mar-ket developments.

Growth has begun with municipal solar obligations

In previous years the public’s limited knowledge of so-lar technology, an industry that was only poorly devel-oped as well as the lengthy processing of subsidies re-strained growth. All this should now change. »The build-ing directive will stimulate the whole market,« says Det-ta Schäfer, the Austrian manufacturer Sonnenkraft’s representative for Spain. »It will cause the population to focus on solar thermal energy.« The attractive prospects resulting from the national solar obligation are causing many companies to invest in new production plants. »Previous suppliers as well as investors from completely diff erent industries, such as, for example, the energy in-dustry,« reports Pascual Polo, managing director of the Spanish Solar Thermal Industry Association (ASIT). In

Solar thermal in Spain: solar obligations forcing upturnUntil now the Spanish solar thermal market hasn’t delivered

what it promised to a lot of companies. A new building

directive that stipulates the use of solar collectors should now

cause an upturn in the solar business. However, some people

are concerned about the quality of the systems.

The new Isofotón absorber assembly line operates largely automatically, for example the soldering of the tube registers.

Photo: Isofotón

75

The Spanish solar thermal market gets going. The fi gure for 2006 is estimated by the industry association ASIT. The fi gure for 2007 has been announced at the general meeting of ESTIF in Decem-ber 2006.



Company Principal offi ce Products and services Website

ACV España Mataró production of collectors www.acv.com

Alwec Valencia production of collectors and installation of systems

www.alwec.es

Avant Solar Moncofar production of collectors www.avant-solar.com

Disol Sevilla designing, distribution and installation of systems

www.disol.es

Dunphy Combustion Sant Feliu de Llobregat distribution of systems www.dunphycombustion.com

Ecofotonica Las Torres De Cotillas production of collectors www.ecofotonica.com

Frigicoll Barcelona, Madrid distribution of systems www.frigicoll.es

Gamesa Solar Madrid production of collectors, designing, distribution and installation of systems

www.solar.gamesa.es

Ibersolar Barcelona distribution of systems www.ibersolar.com

IMS Calefacción Zaragoza distribution of systems www.cpcsolar.com

Isofotón Madrid production of collectors, designing, distribution and installation of systems

www.isofoton.com

LKN Sistemes Les Franqueses del Vallès

production of collectors and tanks, designing and installation of systems

www.lknsistemes.com

Promasol Málaga production of collectors and tanks, designing and installation of systems

www.promasol.com

Rayosol Málaga production of collectors and tanks, designing and installation of systems

www.rayosol.es

Silvasol Jávea production of collectors, designing, distribution and installation of systems

www.silvasol.com

Sistemas de Calor Almería designing, distribution and installation of systems

www.sistemasdecalor.com

Soleco Barcelona production of collectors, designing, distribution and installation of systems

www.soleco.es

Takama Lleida production of collectors www.takama-solar.com

Termicol Sevilla production of collectors and installation of systems

www.termicol.com

Spanish providers and manufacturers of solar ther-mal systems Source: own research

Since December 2004 the Spanish camping ground Villaviciosa de Cordoba gets hot water from a solar thermal installation with 150 m2.Photo: Termicol

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2010

Installed solar thermal capacity (MWth/a) 42.7 49 63 74.9 105 210 3,430

Growth rate 15 % 29 % 19 % 40 % 100 %

76

The 20 top selling solar ther-mal manufacturers in Spain:

power of solar thermal instal-lations (in MWth) approved by

the national energy agency IDAE in Madrid investment

supporting scheme in 2005. The companies share 71 % of

the total solar thermal mar-ket of 74.9 MWth.

Source: IDAE

addition, the autonomous regions will directly make decisions about subsidies in future instead of the na-tional energy agency IDAE in Madrid. »To improve the fl exibility and effi ciency,« explains Manuel Romero from the national research institute CIEMAT.

After years of restrained growth, the Spanish collec-tor market had still grown by 29 % with 63 MW installed output (90,000 m2) in 2004 and in 2005 by another 19 % with 74.9 MWth (107,000 m2). The industry association ASIT expects another 105 MWth (150,000 m2) to be installed in 2006. During the general meeting of the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation (ESTIF) in Brussels at the beginning of December, the Spanish representative said that the market could even double this year. Until now the branch owed the annual growth to mainly local solar obligations. Barcelona was the fi rst of a string of towns that introduced the construction or-der for solar collectors in new buildings and renova-tions. This enabled Barcelona to increase the solar ther-mal energy output from just 1.1 MWth (1,632 m2) in the year 2000 to over 22.4 MWth (32,000 m2). A further 60 communities and towns have followed Barcelona’s ex-

ample and have enacted their own solar obligations. These include big towns such as Granada, Seville and Valencia. In Madrid a similar regulation has led to the additional installation of 19.7 MWth (28,200 m2) since November 2003.

Industry criticises lack of quality requirements

ASIT estimates that almost a quarter of the Spanish pop-ulation now live in communities that stipulate that solar thermal energy systems must be built. They go in part further than the requirements of the national building directive and so will remain valid. A solar obligation is admittedly easy and simple to enact, yet it brings with it considerable expense for the authorities because they have to check that it is being complied with. Further-more, it doesn’t encourage the person concerned to do any more than is required. That’s why the critics fear that

the construction order will result in a problem of quali-ty in the future. If the people were forced to invest they would go for the cheapest products. Aeroline’s manag-ing director, Roland Baumann, expects that »Spain will become a price market.« He has already heard of a par-ticularly cheap solar energy system: solar collectors on the roof without a connection to the basement.

»The building directive harbours the risk of bad qual-ity,« Schäfer also believes. In his opinion, a lot of custom-ers are tempted to counteract the pressure of the regu-lation with the cheapest possible systems. He carried out an analysis for the authority in Barcelona into how solar thermal energy systems, that had been installed a few years ago, functioned. His conclusion: »80 % didn’t meet the norm.« Because they were badly sized, for ex-ample. There are only a few solar installers with suffi cient training on the Iberian peninsula. According to Schäfer, the industry is facing the great challenge of training the fi tters to the corresponding standard. »The solar obliga-tion should really go hand in hand with a training initia-tive from the state,« says Schäfer. ASIT’s managing di-rector, Polo, is concerned above all about the quality of big solar thermal energy systems. His association is working on a quality directive. It should summarise the criteria for the planning and installation of solar ther-mal energy systems. In addition, it aims to include a guide for the maintenance of the systems and thereby enable newcomers to gain a minimum of knowledge necessary to be able to build functioning systems.

Foreign manufacturers dominate the market

The solar thermal energy market in Spain is technically diverse. Whereas thermosiphon systems are predomi-nant in the south, with the absorbers often just painted black, in the cooler north the familiar pump systems from Central Europe can be found, with their selective-ly coated absorbers and combined storage tanks. Ac-cording to a statistic from the IDAE, 50 % of the solar thermal systems subsidised by the state since 1990 also supply heat for heating or a swimming pool even, in ad-dition to hot water for the shower and bath. Solar cool-ing systems or installations for the production of solar process heat, for which the conditions in the country would be most favourable, are, on the other hand, ex-tremely rare (see page 78).

The small domestic market has damaged the devel-opment of a national solar energy industry. »Because of the small market volume for collectors, the manufac-ture of panels in Spain has a low degree of automation and competitiveness«, confi rms Romero. The German Energy Agency (Dena) came to a similar appraisal in its recently published fi eld report »Praxisreport Solarmarkt Spanien« [1]: »In comparison to the domestic compa-nies, foreign suppliers could, according to the IDAE, post over-proportional growth fi gures in the last two years. Most of the Spanish producers of collectors on the other hand – with the exception of Isofotón – re-cently lost some of their market share. The IDAE says that the fault lies with the lacking willingness of the Spanish manufacturers to perceive the growing compe-



0.30.30.30.50.50.5

0.90.9

1.21.3

1.41.5

2.22.7

2.93.1

6.67.1

127.1

0 3 6 9 12

Disol, SpainFrigicoll, Spain

Thermosolar, GermanySistemas de Calor, Spain

Soleco, SpainIbersolar, Spain

Jacques Giordano, FranceLKN Sistemes, Spain

Amcor, IsraelWolf, Germany

Helioakmi, GreeceGamesa Solar, Spain

Termicol, SpainTeufel & Schwarz, Austria

Sonnenkraft, AustriaWagner, Germany

Isofotón, SpainChromagen, IsraelSolahart, Australia

Viessmann, Germany

Installed solar thermal power in 2005 [MWth]Total: 53 MWth



77

the representative in Spain for the German coating company, Bluetec, reports. According to Kern, one such example is the company, Aplicaciones Solares Termicas (Astersas), which plans to build a collector factory with the most modern of machines and technology in the northern Spanish region of Asturias. The company wants to start production in June 2007. Annual produc-tion capacity should amount to 40,000 m2. Astersas plans to triple this amount in the following years. In contrast to most of the producers that already exist and that mainly sell their products at home, Astersas also plans to sell abroad. »In addition to Spain, we also want to sell our collectors in Germany and Central Europe. That’s why the collectors are of the highest quality with the absorbers selectively coated. They are in the pro -cess of being certifi ed by a Spanish as well as a German institute,« explains Manuel Cuesta, an employee of As-tersas. Kern, who is also a management consultant, ex-pects up to three quarters of the collectors sold in Spain to be produced by domestic companies in the future. Isofotón wants to contribute a large part of this. The company, which is both a manufacturer of solar mod-ules as well as solar collectors, offi cially opened a new fully automated collector production facility in October 2006. In a production area of 14,500 m2, 15 employees can produce, with the help of six robot arms, a collector area of 84,000 m2 per year. And if that wasn’t enough! In the fi rst three months of this year still, Isofotón wants to expand the factory’s production capacity to 280 MWth (400,000 m2). Medium-term planning envisages a pro-duction fi gure of 560 MWth (800,000 m2 per year). Spain is expecting a boom in solar thermal energy. ✹

Joachim Berner

[1] German Energy Agency (Dena): »Praxisreport Solarmarkt Spanien«, Berlin, October 2006, www.dena.de. This publication is not available in English.

Further information:www.idae.eswww.asit-solar.com

tition and counteract this with an increase in the price/performance ratio and the quality of service.« ASIT esti-mates that the domestic manufacturers will have a market share of 25 %. That’s how foreign companies have been dominant until now. An evaluation in 2005 by the IDAE of the subsidy decisions named the German heating group, Viessmann, market leader, followed by the two international solar thermal companies, Sola-hart from Australia and Chromagen from Israel (see fi g-ure on the left). In fourth place followed the fi rst Span-ish manufacturer, Isofotón. Three more foreign suppli-ers, Wagner, Sonnenkraft and Teufel & Schwarz were in the top ten. The Spanish companies, Termicol and Gamesa, only managed positions eight and nine.

Domestic producers on the rise

Domestic producers are, however, strengthening their position at the moment. They are either expanding or modernising their production or they are looking around for strong partners. Gamesa Solar announced, for example, that it would merge with a large European manufacturer in 2007. In addition, new national manu-facturers are arriving on the scene just as Markus Kern,

Due to the solar obligation in Barcelona this solar thermal installation started opera-tions in 2002 (80 m2 for 96 apartments).Photo: Sonnenkraft

The solar heating system in Torredlodones, Madrid, sup-plies a building with hot wa-ter, runs the heating system and heats a swimming pool. Photo: Chromagen

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78

Pupils at the German School in Barcelona will be able to eat without sweating this summer. By then, pleasant temperatures in their school canteen will be provided by a solar cooling system from the German solar tech-nology supplier Conergy AG. »Solar cooling has enor-mous growth potential worldwide, as sunlight for cool-ing is available exactly when temperatures are highest,« explains Conergy employee Christian Stadler. Increas-ing demand for comfort is increasing the global de-mand for cooling. Experts put the European air-condi-tioning market at € 4.3 billion, with half of this in Italy and Spain alone.

Few commercial systems

Although Spain is predestined for the use of solar cool-ing systems, so far only demonstration units exist. »The number of installations rose threefold in 2004, rising

from 6 in 2003 to 17 projects. But in 2005 this number increased only up to 23,« says Manuel Romero from the national research institute CIEMAT. »Provisional infor-mation shows that in 2005 the refrigeration share of so-lar thermal units decreased to 1 %.«

The solar thermal expert Laura Sisó from the plan-ning company Aiguasol Eneginyeria of Barcelona puts this down to the much higher investment costs com-pared to electric vapour compression chillers. Solar cool-ing systems require more components for starters, and some of these components are also not common on the market, such as adsorption machines or liquid desic-cant systems.

Additionally, high maintenance costs would eat up the savings in energy costs. »A main reason for this is that regulations are very strong regarding maintenance requirements in cooling towers, in order to avoid le-gionella outbreaks. This means that costs for mainte-nance are very high and popular opinion is against this refrigeration method,« explains Sisó. »Besides this eco-nomic situation, the lack of both proper knowledge of the technology and tools for design constrain the im-plementation of solar cooling systems.«

Emerging market

95 % of the few solar cooling systems in Spain are based on absorption chillers and fl at plate or vacuum tube col-lectors. And the reason: In Spain it is very common that air-conditioning systems are based on water distribution and the terminal equipment are usually fan-coils. »In the last two years a lot of small absorption chillers with 5 to 15 kW of cooling capacity have emerged in the market,« says Sisó on current trends in the cooling market, which could have a positive impact on the application of solar sys tems. »This is an attractive option for houses that al-ready have a solar array to supply heating and which, in summer, have not only a cooling load but also a require-ment of a system to dissipate the solar energy collected.«

The solar cooling market in Spain is an emerging one. Sisó expects falling costs for solar col-lectors and cooling equipment with increasing numbers of in-stallations. She claims: »In paral-lel, a strong activity in R+D is re-quired to develop and improve equipment, to create a knowl-edge network, to standard ise the technology, to simplify con-trol strategies of the systems and to guarantee a reliability of the new installations, in order to create confi dence in this tech-nology between the stakehold-ers of the market.« Anyhow she expects a bright future for solar cooling applications in Spain. »In the present situation of increas-

ing demand for air-conditioning, rising prices of fossil fuels and more frequent problems in the electricity net-work due to peak loads mainly caused by cooling de-mand, solar cooling will become a good solution.« ✹

Joachim Berner

Desiccant cooling plant with solar air collectors and photo-

voltaic modules at Pompeu Fabra Library in Mataró, Cata-

lonia-Spain. Photos (2): ZAFH.net

Solar cooling combats summer heat



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