B.Eng. Melanie Vogelpohl
Datum des Kolloquiums: 11. Februar 2011
In Kooperation mit: Infinergy Ltd, Auckland, Neuseeland
Worldwide renewable energies are playing a major role in the fight against global warming. Among renewable energy systems generating electricity, such as photovoltaic systems, there are also systems generating thermal energy. The use of fossil fuels for heating water in households or industry can be reduced or even replaced by using for example solar water heating systems.
Germany got into the global focus as a renewable energy supporting country by setting up the renewable energy sources act and, in 2009, also the renewable energies heat act. The latter sets the obligation for newly built houses to use renewable energy systems to cover a part of the thermal energy demand. Solar water heating systems belong to the supported energy sources.
As can be seen in the following chart even though New Zealand has a higher energy gain of approximately 100-200 kWh/m² per year the usage of solar wa-ter heating systems was remarkably higher in Germany than in New Zealand from 2004 to 2008.
Therefore New Zealand's suppliers have an interest in seeing how Germany
supports and promotes the solar heating market.
The bachelor thesis focused on three main instruments to compare current situations in New Zealand and Germany:
- Standards
- Acts
- Financial support provided by the government
Furthermore a special attention was paid to find explanations for the lower usage of solar heating systems in New Zealand in the above named fields.
Both countries support solar water heating systems, whereas only Germany has a specific act. The available funding in Germany is higher, but stricter requirements are applied. Differences were found in the grant schemes, as New Zealand's premises were stricter, but tried to overcome problems in the own market. All in all the support as well as the markets are in a different state of development. For further researches it can be interesting to analyse mistakes and achievements of the German market in the past years, where the market was more comparable to the current New Zealands one.
The standards, as requirements for the financial support, showed similarities in test methods and conditions and are comparable.