Solar thermal utilization of the basic principles of solar radiation is collected, will be the use of light energy into heat energy, is currently mainly used in solar water heaters and solar thermal power generation are two areas. China's solar thermal industry began in earnest in the 1980s, because of the emergence of energy shortages, the universities and research institutes started a solar thermal research. With the "863" plan, a group of scientific research into productivity quickly and comprehensively promote the use of solar light and heat the industrialization process.
At present, solar water heater China has become the world's largest solar thermal application market, the world's largest solar collector manufacturing center. 2009 to promote China's total collector area of ??about 145 million square meters, accounting for about 76% of the world's total; annual production of 40 million square meters, close to 60% of world production. 2009 total sales of solar water heaters of about 57.85 billion yuan, an increase of 34.5%. Solar thermal technology not only in civilian areas, are still paper, beverage, machinery, textiles, food, aquaculture and other industrial and agricultural production are widely used.
China's solar thermal industry has been able to rapidly develop and ranked first in the world, the key factor is to master the core technology. solar collector China's solar thermal industry more than 95% of its own technology, the solar collectors, heat generation integrated systems, heating and refrigeration, desalination, energy saving, equipment testing, etc., has the world's leading technology.
Solar thermal power solar thermal technology is a new field, in industry come from behind the use of light and heat, momentum is very rapid. "Eleventh Five-Year" period, the state of light thermal power technology research and development investment continued to increase. From 2006 to 2010, only the Ministry of Science and solar thermal power investment funds on more than 47.5 million yuan, the key technology areas to achieve a breakthrough.
With the development of high-temperature solar water heaters and building integrated solar technology has improved, the applications of solar water heaters provide hot water no longer limited, are gradually heating, cooling, drying and industrial applications, the direction of expansion, the market has great potential .
"Twelve Five Year Plan" for the first time clearly stated in the next five years, direct government invest 4 trillion yuan in new energy sources, energy saving technology and other 9 major industries. As the same time across the "new energy" and "energy saving" two solar thermal industry, at all levels of government and industry has become the focus of policy.