Apart from the joint work on different European and national projects, the consortium is active also in SolarPACES program which is an IEA collaborative program dealing with solar thermal electric systems, solar chemistry research, solar technology and advanced applications, solar heat for industrial processes, solar resource assessment and forecasting and solar energy and water processes and applications.
In particular, CEA, ISG and INES are strongly involved in the IEA Task on Solar Process Heat (Task 64 SHC / Task IV SolarPACES). The scope of the task is for solar thermal technologies to convert solar radiation into heat and further the intelligent integration of the produced heat into industrial processes (i.e., the subject that is covered by the Task starts with the solar radiation reaching the collector and ends with the hot air, oil, water or steam being integrated into the application).
Applications, systems, and technologies, that are included in the scope of this task, are:
- All processes in industry, commerce and agriculture that are thermally driven and operated in a temperature range from ambient temperature up to approx. 400-500 °C.
- Solar thermal systems using air, water, low pressure steam or oil as a heat carrier, i.e. not limited to a certain heat transfer medium in the solar loop.
- All types of solar thermal collectors are addressed: uncovered collectors, flat-plate collectors, improved flat-plate collectors – for example hermetically sealed collectors with inert gas fillings, evacuated tube collectors with and without reflectors, CPC collectors, MaReCos (Maximum Reflector Collectors), linear Fresnel collectors, parabolic trough collectors.
The aim of the FRIENDSHIP Consortium is to become the voice of the Task 64 SHC / Task IV SolarPACES and push the SHIP technology towards a wider use into industrial processes.