PROSOL Industry

The Italian Ministry for the Environment Land and Sea, in collaboration with the Tunisian Ministry of Industry and Energy, National Agency for Energy Conservation (ANME), Mediterranean Renewable Energy Centre (MEDREC), and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) launched, in 2011, the project PROSOL Industry in order to promote the development of solar thermal systems in the industrial sector.

• Start year: 2011

Moving  the  steps from  the  success cases  of  application of  Solar  Water Heating  in  residential and tertiary  sector  in Tunisia  (projects  “Prosol Residential”  and  “Prosol Tertiary”),  but  also with  the awareness  of  the  greater complexity  of  the integration  of  this technology  to  industrial processes, different actions have been carried out in the past years in order to delineate the main aspects of this particular  application, including  studies  on heated  water  needs of  Tunisian  factories belonging  to different  manufacturing sectors  and  studies on  the potential  of solar  thermal  energy application  to industrial processes. Moreover, in 2011, the Department of Energy of Politecnico di Milano (Italy) has been charged of a technical assistance activity resulting in :

• A regional  training  on solar  thermal  technology including  practical  sizing exercise  of  solar thermal system  for  industrial processes  and  software for  the  implementation  of energy performance studies, held in Milan in July 2011, attended by three ANME technicians
• 3 feasibility  studies  for integration  of  solar thermal  technology  into industrial  process including  collector type,  nominal  working condition,  investment  costs, carried  out  by Politecnico di Milano.
• 3 feasibility  studies  for integration  of  solar thermal  technology  into industrial  process including  collector type,  nominal  working condition,  investment  costs, carried  out  by technicians from Prosol Unit (ANME) with the supervision of Politecnico di Milano.

Feasibility studies embraced the integration of solar water heaters in various industrial applications, for  producing  hot water  and/or  steam at  different  temperature levels,  in  order to  understand  what processes could be  suitable  for integration  of  solar technology  and  find optimal  operating conditions. A major emphasis have  been placed on cost-effectiveness of solar integration, also on the basis of current  Tunisian policies  of  incentives for  renewable  energy sources  and  fossil fuels,  and  on possible developments, in a sustainable direction, of these policies.