Cologne, 22 March 2016 – ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, today announces SolarWall®, a solar air heating system, for the German market. This innovative technology is a highly effective solar air heating system that displaces up to 50% of a building’s space heating expense.
New regulation focused on the heating of buildings came into effect in Germany on 1 January 2016. Under this new legislation buildings are required to use 25% less energy and retrofit fresh-air ventilation systems. Technologies like the SolarWall® Air Heating system offer a unique solution in all new constructions to meet these regulatory requirements. The newly crafted energy standard is perfectly aligned with one of the main sources of GHG emissions in the building sector, which is space heating.
The European Union is committed to a 20% renewable energy target by 2020. Space heating represents up to half of a building’s energy demand but the lack of viable clean technologies that address the huge quantities of energy required for space or process heating continues to be a challenge to attaining the 2020 targets.
SolarWall® – as a building integrated system – utilizes solar radiation to deliver naturally warmed fresh air into buildings, providing a renewable heat source. Installed as an additional skin to a building to create an air cavity, the SolarWall technology consists of a precoated steel collector with thousands of carefully engineered perforations spread across its surface to collect the heated air. As sunlight strikes the surface of the steel skin, the energy is absorbed, heating the surface and creating a thermal boundary layer. In turn, this layer of heated air which lines the face of the collector is drawn through the perforations and into the building’s ventilation system.
The SolarWall® systems are unique in that they are all-steel, building integrated & site-built using local labour. In addition, they require virtually no maintenance over their 30+ year lifespan.
ArcelorMittal Construction’s CEO, Jean Christoph Kennel, states: “With increased pressure on private and public buildings to become more proficient environmentally, there is a trend towards highly efficient, holistic heating solutions which can be combined with established renewable technologies driving towards energy efficiency and reduced CO2 emissions. The SolarWall technology provides a new solution for the commercial and industrial and tertiary sector to costeffectively reduce both their operating costs and their CO2 emissions”.
The SolarWall® air heating technology recently attained the Solar KEYMARK Certification, meaning that the solar energy produced from the system – and corresponding GHG emissions offset – will contribute to the on-site renewable energy targets. It also allows technologies to become eligible for subsidies such as BAFA.
ArcelorMittal and Conserval Engineering, the world leader in Solar Air Heating, have formed a joint venture to produce and market the SolarWall® systems in Europe. They are manufactured by ArcelorMittal Construction in France at Haironville, for SolarWall® Europe sarl. The SolarWall® technology is available via the ArcelorMittal Construction sales network in Germany.
Post time: Feb-24-2017