France: High Solar Thermal Standing, But Shrinking Market | Solarthermalworld

France: High Solar Thermal Standing, But Shrinking Market | Solarthermalworld

Having been asked by French Environment and Energy Management Agency, ADEME, to identify market barriers and set research priorities, about twenty sector professionals came together to publish a roadmap in late 2012 (see the attached document in French). The roadmap outlines today’s tough situation: installations are too expensive, too complicated and take too long to install. For example, the installation of a solar water heater in a single-family house needs a full four days.
The roadmap’s 2020 aim is to reduce costs by 50 to 80% per kWh_th. It recommends penetrating the market with compact systems, which reduce installation work. “Our idea is to optimise the collector surface to better meet the customer’s needs, for example, by using a kit with a 2 m² panel and a 100 to 150 litre water tank,” says Philippe Gay, Mission Coordinator at French solar industry association Enerplan. Using an all-in-one compact system for homeowners is also a way to facilitate the installation. “These compact systems combine a solar water tank and a boiler in one box. They have been on the market for several years, but we have recently seen a growing interest in installations in multi-family houses,” explains Yves Carl, Marketing Director of German solar thermal company Viessmann in France. According to Uniclima, the French union for the heating, cooling and ventilation industry, compact systems account for about 20% of the solar thermal water heater market for single-family houses.