Page 242 - ISES SWC50

1996
• The biennial Eurosun conference series has been launched, held in even years complementary to the ISES
Solar World Congresses. The first Eurosun took place in Freiburg (DE). Until 2018, 13 conferences have
been arranged by ISES-Europe. Since 2020 Eurosun is organised by ISES together with IEA-SHC. Eurosun
attracts people from all over the world, 2018 came about a quarter of the participants from outside Europe.

1997
• ThermoSolar (Slovakia) starts large-scale manufacturing of a flat vacuum collector (TS400).

1998
• Development of laser welding.

1999
• The City of Barcelona, Spain required new buildings with more than 20 dwellings to have solar water
heater .
• “PHOTONIO” The world‘s largest solar air- conditioning project with 2664m of panels and 700kW of
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absorption chillers is installed in Sarantis, Greece.
• China National Center for Quality Supervision and Inspection of Solar Water Heaters of China
was set up with the help of UNDP project. Since then, China began to establish the system of testing,
standardization, and certification of solar thermal energy.

9.5 CSP 1990-1999

1991
• Luz, the company that built and operated the SEGS plants, went bankrupt when the price of natural gas
fell, and certain policies expired. The SEGS plants continued to operate as the owners took over their
operation.
1992
• SEGS 3-7, now operated by KJC Operating Company, started a 6-year O&M improvement program funded
by DOE and managed by Sandia National Laboratory.

1995
• Solar 1 was reconfigured into Solar 2, a 10 MW molten salt tower with thermal energy storage and began
operation.

1998
• A consortium of European companies and research centres commenced development of the Eurotrough, a
parabolic trough collector, with funds from the EU.

1999
• Solar 2 successfully completed its tests and ceased operation.

9.6 Solar Architecture Buildings 1990-1999

1990
• In Japan a new solar cell roofing tile combining a building material (a glass Japanese-style roof tile) and an
amorphous silicon (a-Si) solar cell was developed. It was made possible by developing new technologies
for uniformly fabricating a-Si film on complex curved surfaces such as Japanese tiles and for patterning
integrated-type solar cells on large-area curved surfaces.
1994
• German Architect Rolf Disch designs and builds the Heliotrope in Freiburg, Germany The Heliotrope was
the first building in the world to capture more energy than it uses, all of which is entirely renewable,
emissions free and CO neutral. The structure physically rotates to track the sun, which allows it to harness
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the maximum natural sunlight and warmth possible.

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