solar thermal world map of the solar thermal indu try

Sun & Wind Energy 12/201228

Solar thermal world map of the Solar thermal induStry

Solar industry in upheavalThe 6th World Map of the Solar Thermal Industry illustrates the global

trends more clearly than ever before. A number of solar specialists

have gone missing in Europe, flat plate collectors are gaining

significance in China, the Indian solar thermal industry is paying

increasing attention to vacuum tube collectors, and the European

heating industry spans the world with a network of manufacturing

facilities.

The sales crisis in Europe is painfully evident from a glance at this year’s World Map of the Solar Thermal Indus-

try. There were fewer replies from both flat plate and vacuum tube collector manufactur-ers to the survey initiated by Bielefeld-based agency solrico compared to last year – despite the similarly intensive efforts to soli-

cit completed questionnaires. The two-part world map of the flat plate collector branch (page 30) shows 212 companies and their production locations in 46 countries (last year: 244 companies and 52 coun-tries). The questionnaire for vacuum tube manufactu-rers (see world map, page 36) was completed by 73 companies from 20 countries (last year: 88 compa-nies from 21 countries). The only segment to show a slight increase was that for air collectors, which has been depicted on a separate map since 2010 (page 41).

Which companies are no longer to be found on the world maps of flat plate and vacuum tube collec-tor manufacturers in 2012?

The British collector manufacturer Filsol Solar ceased trading at the beginning of the year. Accord-ing to former Managing Director John Blower, this step was unavoidable after delaying of the planned Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) for private house-holds and in view of the significant reductions in the feed-in tariffs for PV solar electricity from 2012.

The German map misses two manufacturers: Solvis Energiesysteme and Schüco International. The solar division at Schüco experienced a sudden caesu-ra in the summer: longstanding President and CEO Dirk Hindrichs was fired practically overnight, and was followed shortly after by almost 500 employees – most of them from the PV department. Rumours abound and some branch insiders claim to have heard that the collector manufacturing facility in Bielefeld is to be closed. There are no concrete facts out yet, however, let alone confirmation from the company itself.

Flat plate collector manufacturer Wagner & Co Solartechnik in Cölbe has closed its collector assem-bly plant in Madrid and now produces collectors only at the company’s German facility in Kirchhain.

Winkler Solar from Austria declined to partici-pate. The Feldkirch-based company put its machinery for the series production of standard collectors up for sale in May, but was still looking for a buyer at the end of October. The business with large collectors, however, is to be continued.

The closure of Portuguese collector manufacturer Norquente, one of the main players on the country‘s solar thermal market, came as something of a sur-prise. Founded under the name António Cecílio Martins in 1982, the company was from mid-2009 one of the first recognised system suppliers under the newly established incentive programme Medida Solar Térmico. The reasons for the closure were still not known at the time of writing. In last year’s survey, the company already announced a 50 % reduction in its manufactured collector area from 50,000 m2 in 2010 to 25,000 m2 in 2011.

Acquisition of solar specialists as door opener to the branch

Consolidation in the industry is continuing. This year, too, saw a series of acquisition deals, though there was no noticeable acceleration of the process, de-spite the European market crisis. Five takeovers can be described here, compared to four last year, and only two of them were in Europe. Generally, a major company acquires an established solar specialist as a means to expand into the solar thermal sector. That is also the background in the case of Tecnisun. The French vacuum tube collector manufacturer was tak-en over at the beginning of the year by Lacaze Energies, which is itself a subsidiary of the global power transmission group Cahors. Former Tecnisun Director Clément Mabire is now responsible within the group for the establishing of a solar division. Mabire has said that collector manufacturing is to continue, even though the company did not take part in the survey this year.

The two Managing Directors of Belgian collector manufacturer ESE Ultimate Solar Heat, Jean-Paul Vantomme and Gilbert Descy, ended a 30-year involve-ment in November 2011 by selling out to the French Atrya group, a supplier of windows, doors and roller

Squaring the circle – everything is changing in the solar industry. If requested by customers, Polish manufac-turer Ensol is also happy to supply round collectors, like this exhibition showpiece. Photo: Bärbel Epp

29Sun & Wind Energy 12/2012

shutters to the construction industry. Philippe Sun now manages the Belgian collector manufacturing location under the name European Sopro Energies (ESE).

Israeli specialist for solar swimming pool heating Magen eco-Energy acquired 100 % ownership of US solar thermal supplier UMA Solar in July. Marketing Manager Sharon Younger has confirmed that the com-pany started manufacturing metal collectors at its site in Orlando, Florida.

The solar thermal market in Brazil is gaining pace and has likewise attracted increasing interest among the big industry players who have in the past target-ed mainly solar specialists. Two take-overs made the headlines this year. In May 2012, Bosch Thermo-technik took full control of the company Heliotek, which manufactures collectors and tanks in the city of Barueri in the south of the country. According to news from the head office in Wettringen, the Heliotek brand name is to be preserved and the Brazilian facility is to be expanded. Heliotek was shown on last year’s world map with a production volume of 36,400 m2 collector area in 2010.

The company Hidroconfort, to date specialised in solar swimming pool heating, acquired collector man-ufacturer GET, which reported an annual production volume of around 30,000 m2 in earlier surveys. The new company goes by the name GET Hidroconfort.

Major changes in the industry: four trendsThe solar thermal branch is in upheaval. Major chang-es throughout the industry are reflected ever more no-ticeably in the annual world maps. Four key trends can be identified, and are to be illuminated in more detail:

Ranking of the biggest flat plate collector manufacturers according to the collector area produced in 2011. In this year’s ranking the following companies are missing: Velux with its manufacturing facility in Hungary, Thermosolar from Slovakia, the two German companies Solvis and Schüco, the two Turkish companies Istek and Solimpeks as well as the Danish SolarCAP group which has production facilities in India, Denmark and the USA. As an exception BDR Thermea is displayed with the sold collector area, which is not completely manufactured in the company-owned facility in Spain. GREENoneTEC, Viessmann and Sunda are also producers of vacuum tube collectors, which are not included in this list.

http://www.novasol.es



five collector production locations to date: Wettrin-gen (Germany, since 1978), Aveiro (Portugal), Shang-hai (China), Barueri (Brazil, since May 2012), and since July this year a new facility in Bangalore in Southern India. The company confirms that collectors are assembled and absorbers manufactured at all these locations. Vacuum tubes, on the other hand, are without exception still purchased from external vendors.

Viessmann is the pioneer of collector manufactur-ing within the heating branch and has operated its own production facility since 1978. The group contin-ues to concentrate its production at the Faulquemont location in France, and is active internationally with only a single vacuum tube collector factory in Asia. The factory in Beijing, China, is in the meantime a 100 % Viessmann subsidiary and manufactures both tubes and complete collectors.

The Vaillant group, BDR Thermea and Ariston are late-starters with regard to collector manufacturing, But like Bosch, these three companies are also ex-panding to meet their global customers with decen-tralised manufacturing facilities. Vaillant is to be found in three countries on the flat plate collector map: Germany (Gelsenkirchen), France (Nantes) and Turkey (Bozüyük). BDR Thermea only started produc-tion in 2009, is now established in Turkey with the joint venture Baymak, and has been assembling flat plate collectors near Barcelona in Spain since the end of 2009. Ariston mentioned three factories in the sur-vey, with two producing flat plate collectors – in Serra

the European heating branch is marching •forward triumphantly;the solar thermal industry is expanding •slowly in Eastern and Southeast Europe;flat plate collector manufacturing is becom-•ing ever more important in China; the Indian solar thermal industry concen-•trates on vacuum tubes.

Triumphant march of the heating sector

In the ranking of the 20 largest flat plate collector manufacturers (see figure on page 29), the European heating branch had no difficulty defending is good positions again this year. The giants of the heating world are all to be found in the upper half of the rank-ing: Bosch, Viessmann, BDR Thermea and Vaillant. Looking at the annual growth rates for collector area manufactured as a long-term average for selected companies (see table), it is conspicuous that all the heating companies have been recording two-figure growth rates, whereas the expansion of production among the solar specialists has been considerably slower. It was here not possible to calculate values for the two Chinese manufacturers in the ranking, Prosunpro and Fivestar, because they have not re-sponded to the surveys every year.

The manufacturing facilities of the European heat-ing industry in the meantime embrace the whole world. Top of the league is Bosch Thermotechnik with

SMEThermal 2013Solar Thermal Materials, Equipment and Technology Conference29 January 2013, Berlin, GermanyConference management: Solarpraxis AGAnika Sperling, Phone: + 49 (0) 30 | 726 [email protected]

Contact for sponsors: SUN & WIND ENERGYChristiane Diekmann, Phone: +49 (0) 521 | 595 [email protected]

www.solarpraxis.com

In cooperation with Partner Program AdvisorGold Sponsors Media Partner

http://www.solarpraxis.com


Sun Master Energiesysteme GmbHSolarstraße 7 | Gewerbepark A4653 Eberstalzell | Austria

Tel.: +43 (0) 7241 28 125 - 0Fax: +43 (0) 7241 28 125 - 300E-Mail: [email protected]

SO L A R CO L L E C TO R I N D U S T R I E S

Sun Master erfindet die Zukunft

Seit über 30 Jahren trägt Sun Master den Gedanken der solaren Energiewende in die Welt. In der Geschäftzentrale – dem weltweit modernsten Solar-Aktiv-Industriegebäude – werden jährlich 300.000 m² Sonnenkollektoren gefertigt.

Das Unternehmen bietet eine breite Produktpalette an Solarkollektoren und hat sich dank modernster Forschung zum Markt- und Innovationsführer im Bereich Solarenergie entwickelt.













www.sun-master.at



















www.sun-master.at



















www.sun-master.at



SOLAR COLLECTOR INDUSTRIES
















The “master.system” from Sun Master includes all necessary heating components and can be very simply mounted on almost any roof

Sun Master develops a unique product innovation – the plug & work master.system:

• all-in-one collector with integrated installation system

• includes all necessary heatingcomponents

• can be very simply mounted on almost any roof

• with no need to install complex electricity or water supply

Sun Master has over 30 years experience as the leading manufacturer of solar thermal collectors. With the master.system Sun Master has set another new standard for solar collectors.

De Conti (Italy) and Pune (India) – and one responsible for the final assembly of vacuum tubes in Wuxi (China).

Slow expansion of the industry in Eastern and Southeast Europe

Poland and the Czech Republic are the only two countries in Eastern and Southeast Europe with any mention-able industry. This year again, nine Polish and nine Czech manufacturers took part in the world map survey. Otherwise, the whole belt from Poland to Greece is rather empty, and there is at best one manufacturer in most countries, despite the fact that market potential in this region is enormous. The sluggish emergence of the branch is in part a consequence of the afore-mentioned trend of a “triumphant march of the heat-ing industry”. The boiler manufacturers have general-ly already made a name for themselves with their heating portfolio and have thus also occupied the so-lar niche. Another negative factor as far as invest-ments are concerned is the constant stop-and-go in respect of incentive policies. In addition, locally man-ufactured products face the problem of a poor repu-tation among consumers in some countries. Import-ed products are more popular. As a result, there are no newcomers whatsoever from this region on this year’s map.

So where are new production facilities being opened? The world maps for this year show four newly founded companies, namely one each in Italy, Portugal, Uruguay and Turkey, and thus significantly fewer than last year, when nine start-ups could be introduced in the world map special (see SW&E 12/2011).

In Northern Italy, Mauro Rossi and two partners founded the company Weppidoo in March 2012. A newly developed collector – outwardly a flat plate collector, but with small tracked parabolic troughs incorporated into the housing – was presented for the first time at Intersolar Europe in Munich in June. Manufacturing is said to have started in Veruno in October 2012.

The first flat plate collector manufacturer in Uru-guay is FUCO, whose name stands for Fábrica Uru-guaya de Colectores Solares Planos (Uruguay flat plate collector factory). The Chilean company Britec is an important partner and holds a 9 % stake in FUCO. It was not least this support which enabled the founding and production inauguration to be complet-ed in just five months.

Soldirecto in Portugal was founded two-and-a-half years ago and commenced series production of flat plate collectors in the spring of this year. The com-pany has already obtained Solar Keymark certifica-tion and its five employees currently produce around 300 collectors per month.

Average annual growth of the last five years of produced collector area

Source: Manufacturers, solrico

Company Country Annual growth

Wolf Germany 33 %

Bosch Thermo-technik

Germany 19 %

Vaillant Germany 18 %

Viessmann Werke Germany 10 %

Soletrol Industria Brazil 8 %

Sammler Solar Greece 8 %

Ezinç Metal Turkey 6 %

Nimrod Industries Israel 6 %

Sun Master Austria 5 %

Cosmosolar Greece 4 %

Chromagen Israel 4 %

GREENoneTEC Austria 3 %

Rheem / Solahart Australia 3 %

Wagner Germany -10 %

http://www.sun-master.at


A new Turkish vacuum tube manufac-turer appears for the second time, namely the company Solarsan. The factory in Na-zilli in the West Turkish province of Aydin was actually supposed to be starting up production in May. At the time of the sur-vey in September, however, a date at the beginning of next year was mentioned in-stead. A series of solar thermal companies have pooled resources to realise the in-vestment sum of € 4.2 million and plan to assemble the jointly manufactured tubes into collectors in their individual factories. The joint venture is the system suppliers’ response to import duties which the gov-ernment has imposed on vacuum tubes since July 2011.

Flat plate collectors ever more important in China

Alongside these start-ups, there are also several established Chinese solar thermal manufacturers with new flat plate collector factories on the map for the first time. The world’s largest collector manufacturer, the Sunrain Group, with a total output of 6 million m2 of vacuum tube collector area in 2011, has now been operating a flat plate collector facility in Lianyungang, China, since 2009, and already reports a production volume of 40,000 m2 for last year. The number two in the ranking of the largest brand suppliers, the Himin Group (3 million m2 vacuum tube collector area in 2011), has similarly announced that it commenced flat plate collector production this year. And Tsinghua from near Beijing is another traditional supplier to confirm its entry into the flat plate collector mar-ket.

On this year’s flat plate collector maps (page 30), factories which started up pro-duction in 2012 are marked with a star – ten locations in total. Besides the afore-mentioned companies, export specialist Apricus and vacuum tube collector manu-facturer Tjsun are further representatives of the Chinese industry.

Reasons for this portfolio expansion are prospects on the flat plate-dominated export markets and the fast-growing seg-ment of balcony systems. The latter are decentralised, pumped water heating systems with the collector mounted in front of the balcony railing and the stor-age tank standing or suspended behind. “Balcony systems are popular for multi-family buildings that lack roof space for a solar unit for each apartment,” says Jie Xu, Linuo Paradigma’s Production Man-ager. “We produced 60,000 tanks for

balcony systems last year and we expect a doubling this year.”

Linuo Paradigma integrates vacuum tube collectors into the façade, but many other manufacturers prefer to use flat plate collectors for decentralised systems for reasons of appearance. There are never-theless some exceptions to this trend: for example, TP Solar – also one of the 10 largest vacuum tube collector manufactur-ers in China – replied to our questions with the information that flat plate collec-tors used to be produced in the past, but that the company today concentrated on tubes.

Plausibility checks for company data

Flat plate collector manufacturer Prosunpro in the south of China has grown not on the basis of balcony systems, but rather with contracting solutions for large-scale heat consumers such as sports clubs, hospitals or universities. According to data provided by the company itself, some 400,000 m2 of flat plate collectors was produced in 2011, which is sufficient to take second place in the ranking of the largest collector manufacturers (figure on page 29).“We in-stalled 350,000 m2 as contracting solu-tions last year,” explains Jenny Shi, Vice Sales Director from the International Trade Department. This statement can hardly be verified, and the same actually applies to many other figures contained in the world maps. The authors, however, have at least tested the plausibility of data received from the individual companies. The follow-ing criteria were taken into account: Which figures were provided in response to the surveys of previous years? Are the figures quoted in line with the national market vol-ume, and did the company respond to a more detailed follow-up? If these three conditions were met, the company was accepted onto the world map and its pro-duction data included in the ranking.

India concentrates on vacuum tubes

Complementing Emmvee and Racold – ac-quired by the Italian boiler manufacturer Ariston – two further European companies have this year discovered the highly dy-namic Indian collector market. In the busi-ness year 2011/2012, the collector area sold broke the 1 million m2 barrier for the first time. Bosch Thermotechnik started absorber and collector production at the group’s own factory in Bangalore in July.

Easy cost reduction, quality increase and new design options – with fast curing high strength bonding and sealing systems.

Call us to learn how our innovative and approved solutions for the PV and Solar Industry can help you to achieve your targets. Sika is a leader in process materials used for sealing, bonding, reinforcing and protecting. We commit to the highest product quality and service standards – all over the world.

Reliable and Process Optimised Adhesive Systems

Solar Solutions

Sika Services AG, Tueffenwies 16, CH-8048 Zurich, +41 58 436 52 87

www.sika.com/industry


http://www.sika.com/industry


The Austrian company TiSUN, on the other hand, founded a 50/50 joint venture in Vasai near Mumbai, where the production of solar thermal systems was set up from scratch and commenced in August this year. All four companies have favoured flat plate collectors.

In the Indian solar thermal branch in general, however, the opposite trend can be observed. More and more solar thermal suppliers – all longstanding flat plate collector manufacturers – are in the mean-time importing tubes from China, and some are al-ready selling more vacuum tube collectors than flat plate models. A total of 15 established industrial en-terprises gave data on the area of vacuum tube collec-tors sold in this year’s and last year’s surveys, among them major players such as Photon, Anu Solar and Nuetech. One of the key protagonists of this trend is Sudarshan, one of the oldest companies in the indus-try, which has relied exclusively on imports from China for many years and reported sales of 50,000 m2 gross vacuum tube collector area in 2011.

In Brazil, by contrast, there is no sign of such de-velopments. There was not a single assembler of vac-uum tube collectors among the survey respondents this year. Unasol, the only representative of the vacu-um tube branch last year, assigned itself to the flat plate collector category in its 2012 reply. Himin plans to change this situation for the future. The Chinese number two used the public exposure of the Rio +20 environment conference in Rio de Janeiro in June to present the company’s new export strategy. Himin wants to establish a network of 50,000 trade repre-sentatives worldwide over the next 5 years. Such sales activities, implemented professionally and quickly, will no doubt lead to some lasting changes on future world maps of the solar thermal industry.

Bärbel Epp

Balcony systems are becoming ever more popular in China: the balconies of this multi-family building were fitted with pumped solar water heating systems by Linuo Paradigma. Photo: Linuo Paradigma

http://www.baymak.com.tr


We have developed a new air coll-ector model for industrial appli-cations, with which we want to

increase our sales figures,” explains Hans Jørgen Christensen, founder and head of the Danish manufacturer SolarVenti. “Ad-ditionally, we have lowered our produc-tion costs, which could also have a posi-tive effect on sales in the future,” he con-tinues. Christensen’s statement typifies the approach of a whole string of manufac-turers that wish to continue improving sales despite the difficult market condi-tions in many areas. One way to do this is to expand the product portfolio. Another way is to seek out new market segments and open them up – partly with the help of strategic partnerships.

This is one conclusion from this year’s survey of the solar air collector industry on their business development for 2011/12, which was carried out for S&WE by the German market research agency solrico. A total of 75 manufacturers from 21 coun-tries received the relevant questionnaire in September. 25 companies from 14 countries provided data on their products and manufacturing, and are thus included in the “World map of the solar air collector manufacturers 2012” (2011: 23 manufac-turers from 12 countries). Additionally, the Turkish manufacturer Ezinç and the Cana-dian company Solar-Infra Systems took part in the survey. Both companies supply solar air collectors, but do not manufac-ture these themselves (yet). They are thus not listed on the world map.

As in previous years the world map dif-ferentiates between the unglazed clad-ding systems (green) and the glazed col-lectors (red), whose modular design and

installation possibilities (roofs, façades) are the same as for water-based systems. This latter group – making up 85 % of the companies – meanwhile dominates the world market. The unglazed systems can still mostly be found in North America, where they are available from several manufacturers.

Canadian market still positive

The largest markets for solar air collectors continue to be in North America and Europe. While the suppliers there mostly solely concentrate on the solar air collec-tor sector, there are meanwhile ever-more manufacturers in India and China which supply solar air collectors alongside their water-based systems.

In terms of production volumes, Cana-da is out in front – as it has also been in the last few years. The companies Enerconcept and Your Solar Home, for example, have grown considerably over 2010. But the management at Your Solar Home is still pretty critical about the con-ditions on the Canadian market.

The European market – as already last year – is characterised by stagnation. The German market leader Grammer Solar, with 10,000 m² of manufactured area in 2011, was slightly up over 2010 (9,400 m²). SolarVenti was able to keep its production figures fairly constant in 2011 and expects a growth of almost 10 % for 2012. The German manufacturer Kollektorfabrik announced the most sig-nificant upward trend. Its production fig-ures for solar air collectors using vacuum tube technology are expected to rise from

Hard-earned upward trendThe positive development of this technology was also

confirmed in this year’s – meanwhile the third – survey of

solar air collector manufacturers. This is true both for the

number of companies and the installed collector area. But

this upward trend is not self-sustaining; it is much more a

result of hard work technically and strategically.

http://www.solartech.com.my


Solar thermalworld map of the Solar thermal induStry

920 m² in 2011 to 3,500 m² in 2012. The Italian man-ufacturer Termotend also aims to increase its pro-duction figures significantly to 5,000 m² in 2012

over the previous year (2,000 m²). Company head Claudio Menegatti also forecasts a good 2013.

Stephanie Banse

http://www.prozeda.de

solar thermal world map of the solar thermal indu try

Documents