Internatinal cooperation on testing and certification of solar thermal products

The specific objective is to initiate and manage a new IEA-SHC task conc. development of international standards (ISO) and harmonization of national/regional certification schemes for solar thermal products. The project will built on the encouraging results and good relations created and established in Task 43. The overall aim is to increase and harmonize the quality of solar thermal products by promoting harmonised standards and certification schemes - and at the same time reducing costs by reducing the need for multiple re-testing of same products and multiple re-inspecting of same production facilities. The project has two phases. Phase I: "Task definition phase": The detailed work plan for the task will be elaborated with input from the committed participants, a task definition workshop will be organised. Phase II: "Task running": If the work plan made in the task definition plan is approved by the IEA-SHC  ExCo, the new task can start 1/1 2016. The three foreseen subtasks are:

- Subtask A: Kick-off of the operation of Global Solar Certification Network (here the re-use of test and inspection reports will be organized so reports already done for one certification scheme can be re-used in other schemes)

- Subtask B: New and improved test procedures (here new and improved test procedures will be prepared - potentially to be adopted by ISO)

- Subtask C: Guidelines for certification schemes (a good example of a certification scheme will be elaborated - for inspiration for making new national certification schemes or improving existing ones)

- Subtask D: Promoting use of international standards (here the ISO standards will be recommended/introduced to countries still using their own national standards).

Changes in this subtask organisation may occur due to discussion and agreements during the taskdefinition.