A workshop and a study tour on collective solar thermal technology were held in Tunisia the 28 and 29 November 2014, in the framework of the two-days initiative PROSOL Industry: Solar Water Heating for Industrial Processes, organized by the Mediterranean Renewable Energy Centre (MEDREC), in collaboration with the National Agency for Energy Conservation (ANME) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP-DTIE) and in partnership with the project MED-DESIRE.
November 28, 2014
The workshop took place during Enersol WSEF 2014, the second edition of the forum-exhibition of the most recent technological, commercial, financial, social and regulatory developments in the areas of renewable energy and energy efficiency, gathering the global sustainable energy community.
The initiative reported on, market stimulus instruments, technology state of the art and financial mechanisms in three different sessions, involving local and international stakeholders, plus an opening session.
Opening Session
The introductory speech of the General Director of ANME, Hamdi Harrouch, and the opening intervention of the Director of MEDREC, Marco Polverari underlined the strong cooperation effort made through MEDREC in the last ten years to promote environmentally sound technologies and best practices for the deployment of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency in Tunisia and in the Mediterranean region.
Wahid Bouterra, as a representative of Benetton Tunisie confirmed the commitment of his company in a strong policy for Social and Environmentally Corporate Responsibility, confirmed through the installation of a large solar demonstrative plant in Monastir facility.
Session I was focused on market stimulus instruments for the deployment of Solar Process Heat in Tunisia.
Abdelkader Baccouche from ANME presented an overview on Tunisian solar thermal market and policy.
Samir Amous from APEX presented the results of two studies developed with the support of UNEP, MEDREC and Politecnico di Milano: the evaluation of the potential of Solar Water Heating Market in Industrial sector in Tunisia and the design of a support scheme to promote solar thermal systems in Tunisian industrial sector.
Ghita Hannane from UNEP-DTIE presented UNEP Strategy, as an IFI, for increasing investment flows to renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies, as well as some best practices developed worldwide.
This session was moderated by Salvatore Moretta, Senior Technical Expert in MEDREC.
Session II was devoted to the latest technological development for large scale solar energy integration for the industrial process heat generation, with a particular focus on the activities carried out with the support of MEDREC and Italian Ministry for the Environment Land and Sea at Benetton facility for the design and construction of the pilot solar plan.
Mario Motta from Energy Department of Politecnico di Milano presented the feasibility study of the plant underlining main factors influencing technical solutions adopted.
Sergio Caimi from Energie del Sole and Francesco Orioli from Soltigua presented latest ready-to-market solutions for the the integration of SWH in industrial processes.
Abdallah Khenissi, Researcher within the department Line Focus Systems - Institute of Solar Research – DLR presented latest research results in solar process steam generation.
This session was moderated by Ghita Hannane from UNEP-DTIE.
Session III was focused on how international cooperation actors in agreement with the local institutions and banks can collaborate in the promotion of distributed solar technologies in Tunisia, in the framework of ENPI CBCMED project MED-DESIRE.
The session consisted in a roundtable regarding local and international financial support for the deployment of distributed solar energy in Tunisia and was moderated by Sami Marrouki, senior national expert in charge of the study on “Innovative Financial Mechanism” in the framework of MED-DESIRE project, focused on the promotion of mid-size PV electricity generation connected to the grid.
The roundtable offered the opportunity to consult relevant stakeholders and experts with the participation of MED DESIRE WP6 Coordinator (Annalidia Pansini), European Investment Bank (Mahmoud Babay), GIZ (Christopher Gross), Amen Bank (Zied Sdiri), ANME (Abdeldaker Baccouche and Abdessalem El Khazen) and two international financing experts (Rafik Missaoui and Samir Amous).
The experts highly recommended that the funding mechanism should be consistent with the following key elements: simplicity, clarity and quality. Furthermore, they suggested that investment risks should be reduced by a regulatory adjustment allowing the grouping of companies. It was also pointed out that the funding mechanism’s technical aspects improvement should be taken into consideration by technological association between EE and PV. Finally, they drew the attention on the importance of working on how to bring out PV projects through the creation of ESCOs or third party investors.
On the other hand, at a financial level, it was pointed out that the call on concessional credit lines to facilitate the access to low cost finance and the implementation of a program to strengthen the capacity of banks, should be taken into consideration.
For the cooperation agencies, it is essential to increase awareness actions within key actors and particularly banks, to develop a commercial approach to customers and consider the simplicity, transparency and appearance of multi-stakeholder mechanism.
On the other hand, considering the public institutions’ point of view, it was explained that is quite significant to strengthen the visibility of operating programs in a longer timeframe, to work towards the establishment of simple and easy procedures to be applied, to involve commercial banks to mobilize credits and increase funding sources for start-up.
All the presentations are available for downloading here.
November 29, 2014
On the 29 November 2014 MED-DESIRE participated in the study tour on collective solar thermal technology organized by MEDREC, in order to illustrate two cases of collective solar thermal systems integrated in the industrial and tertiary sectors.
The event was attended by 40 participants including suppliers, designers and installers, architects, journalists, public officers. In the morning there was a visit to the construction site of the solar thermal pilot plant located at Benetton facility in Monastir. Co-funded by MEDREC and Benetton, the solar plant will be operational by March 2015 and will cover about 10% of the thermal needs of washing and dyeing processes in the facility. The visit was an opportunity to illustrate the principles of the design and the main issues of the installation phase of large size plants, through two presentations made respectively by the designers, the Energy Department of the Politecnico di Milano, and the suppliers/ installers, the company Energie del Sole. In fact, with an area of around 1000 m², the pilot plant is the largest one of this kind in North Africa.
In the afternoon, a visit to the hotel "Le Sultan" located at Hammamet was held. The hotel is equipped with a solar system for the production of domestic hot water with a surface of 450 m². The plant was co-funded by the IMELS under the program "Prosol Tertiary" for the promotion of collective solar thermal systems in the hotel industry and service buildings. The program, launched in 2009, has allowed until today the installation of solar systems in 27 hotels.