BigSolar

Shifting summer heat to winter use
In Europe, demand for heat is usually around 10 times larger in winter than in summer, when solar irradiation reaches its peak
BigSolar plants integrate pit heat storages of an enormous size for storage of hot water up to around 90° C. The ratio storage/collector is totally different to systems with diurnal storage: systems with diurnal storage for domestic hot water and also solar district heating have around 50–100 liters of hot water storage per square meter of collector installed. BigSolar systems have 2000–5000 liters of storage per square meter collector.
Between May and August, a solar plant can meet all hot water needs. Therefore the district heating company running the solar plant can shut down boilers in order to significantly extend their useful lifetime.
This very promising technology is a rather new business field for SOLID. We already conducted some pre-feasibility and feasibility studies in different countries for towns of different sizes.