Solar Heat Worldwide - Markets and Contribution to the Energy Supply 2010

This report was prepared within the framework of the Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (SHC) of the International Energy Agency (IEA). The goal of the report is to document the solar thermal capacity installed in the important markets worldwide, and to ascertain the contribution of solar thermal systems to the supply of energy and the CO2 emissions avoided as a result of operating these systems. The collectors documented are unglazed collectors, glazed flat-plate collectors (FPC) and evacuated tube collectors (ETC) with water as the energy carrier as well as glazed and unglazed air collectors. The data were collected from a questionnaire survey of the national delegates of the SHC Programme’s Executive Committee and other national experts active in the field of solar thermal energy. As some of the 55 countries included in this report have very detailed statistics and others have only estimates from experts, the data was checked for its plausibility on the basis of various publications. Starting with the collector area, respectively the capacity installed, the contributions of solar thermal systems towards the supply of energy and the reduction of CO2 were ascertained. The 55 countries included in this report represent 4.2 billion people, which is about 61% of the world’s population. The installed capacity in these countries is estimated to represent over 90% of the solar thermal market worldwide.