Domestic Hot Water  »  Solar thermal

Safety, durability and performance are important issues in building equipment and technologies. Therefore, they are often subject to government and International regulations. For example at the EU level, all member states have established regulations dealing with safety aspects based on the European directives (In the United Kingdom (UK) the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2008 (as amended in 2009) implement EU Directive 2002/95/EC and restrict the use of various types of electronic and electrical equipment (Legislation.gov.uk, 2016). Similarly, Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 1994 enforce EU Low Voltage Directive (LVD) 2006/95/EC –text of the directive is identical to 73/23/EEC just a change in its number due to codification). In the US millions of dollars of companies go into payment for damages due to safety concerns of products (ESTIF et al., 2012). Therefore companies are increasingly going for self regulation to prevent such events and minimize these risks.

Consumers also demand an adequate value for their money when purchasing products, which also means that products should last longer. This reflects a trade-off for businesses that try to satisfy their customers in hope of further sales and the production of longer-lasting products many lead to less sale returns. Other means to induce customers to buy more products include technological developments, design and functionality improvements, purchase price and operational costs. However, durability remains a crucial factor in consumer product choices. Therefore, labelling products that comply with certain standards facilitates in their marketing by providing consumers a guarantee of performance within given parameters. A quality label also allows companies to differentiate their products based on added features like durability.

Performance is the third important concern in a product choice. In several countries aggressive marketing is allowed where companies campaign for comparative advantages of their products, as is the case in the US. It is often not clear how correct the performance figures used by companies in their marketing campaigns are. This situation highlights the need for acceptable and internationally recognized standards to test all the products equally on the same parameters with appropriate instruments so that product’s performance can be compared fairly.
There are generally two categories of standards (ESTIF et al., 2012):

• Technical Standards: Based on strict technical specifications that ensure that products, manufacturing processes and services meet fixed quality benchmarks. Test methods are usually part of the technical standards. These methods are used to ascertain if the product specifications outlined in the standard are met reasonably and also to determine specific characteristics of the product such as performance and functionality.
• Management and leadership standards: Related to management and leadership standards. These standards propose framework for the businesses to help manage their business processes and activities (e.g., Quality Management Standards)

A standard can only be successful if it is able to generate a greater demand for testing products offered by the testing centres according to related specifications. If a tested product meets the standard-ized requirements a compliance certification should be issued. The support from both the government and the industry is crucial in order to promote and implement standards in the industry. Governments may make such standards compulsory through regulations (e.g., Mandatory Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) in Australia and New Zealand or EU energy labelling scheme for household appliances (Energy Rating, 2015; Energistyrelsen, 2016). Industry may choose self-regulation and start fulfilling the requirements specified in certain standards on its own (participating in voluntary labelling schemes, such as Voluntary Energy Efficiency Labelling Scheme, Hong Kong or Energy Star Rating Plan India - see details below). Often companies selftest their product for compliance against a specific standard and use it as a marketing tool to promote specific characteristics of their product. However these companies can make their claims more credible by complementing self-tested merits of their products with a third party testing and verification.

Energy consumption in energy based appliances and instruments can be addressed through energy standards and labels. Energy standards set minimum acceptable energy performance standards, which a product needs to comply with. The main objective of energy standards is to eliminate least efficient models.  Energy labelling programs can have a nature of information labelling or endorsement labelling. Information labelling allows consumers to compare all products and consider energy efficiency along with other characteristics. They provide information about economic benefits like cost savings accruing through using such products. Endorsement labelling on the other hand is designed to help consumers in identifying most energy-efficient products (UN-DESA/UNEP, 2007).

Energy labelling programs can be mandatory or voluntary. Mandatory labelling programmes have greater impact, as they require all the products be labelled so that consumers can compare all the products. Voluntary energy labelling programmes on the other hand complement product labelling to allow consumers look for energy efficiency characteristics and operational cost savings information about a product.

In addition to national standards for solar thermal products there also exist some renowned third-party certification schemes. These schemes not only provide an alternative to self-testing of solar thermal products to companies but also bring advantages to regulatory authorities that may choose to require certification according to such certification in public tenders instead of requiring their own testing. Furthermore, third-party certification may be required to provide funding within a given support scheme for solar thermal products. A common feature of these schemes is the principle of random-selection of products for testing in order to assure the consumer that the product he/she is buying is similar to that tested. The Solar Rating and Certification Corporation (SRCC) and Solar Keymark both claim that a product they test is selected randomly. Both schemes are well established in the U.S and Europe respectively. More than more than two thirds of the collectors sold in Europe have Solar Keymark (ESTIF et al., 2012; Solar-rating.org, 2016).

The SRCC was founded as a result of collaboration between the US trade association for the solar energy industry, consortium of state energy offices and regulatory bodies. The SRCC established the solar thermal collector testing and rating program in 1980. Testing is a combination of durability and performance of the collectors based on the test procedure specified by ASHRAE Standard 93, "Methods of Testing to Determine the Thermal Performance of Solar Collectors," and ASHRAE Standard 96, "Methods to Testing to Determine the Thermal Performance of Unglazed, Flat Plate, Liquid Solar Collectors." The scope of the program includes swimming pool and recreational heating, space heating, cooling, and water heating. A randomly selected sample of the product has to go through a series of tests according to the methods specified in SRCC Standard 100 by an independent laboratory approved by SRCC in order to get certified. Rating is assigned based on SRCC Document RM-1, "Methodology for Determining the Thermal Performance Rating for Solar Collectors. The rating is an analytically derived set of number representing all-day energy output of solar collector within prescribed conditions (Solar-rating.org, 2016).

Similarly, Solar Keymark is a voluntary third-party certification mark in Europe. The certification scheme is dedicated for compliance verification of solar thermal collectors based on European standard series EN 12975 and factory made solar thermal systems based on European standard series EN12976 (Estif.org, 2016) . An approved certification body can only issue a Solar Keymark after an accredited test laboratory has tested the product. In addition to product testing an independent inspector also checks the quality management systems implemented at the factory. Certification bodies need to be accredit-ed by the European Committee for Standardization or CEN Certification Board (CCB) (Solar-rating.org, 2016).