Central solar heating is the provision of central heating and hot water from solar energy by a system in which the water is heated centrally by arrays of solarrict heating pipe networks (or 'block heating' systems in the case of smaller installations).
Source: Jan Erik Nielsen, PlanEnergi, DK.
Sweden has played a major role in the development of large-scale solar heating. According to (Dalenbäck, J-O., 1993), the first steps were taken in the early seventies in Linköping, Sweden, followed by a mature revision in 1983 in Lyckebo, Sweden. Inspired by this work, Finland developed its first plant in Kerava, and the Netherlands built a first plant in Groningen. These plants are reported under the International Energy Agency by (Dalenbäck, J-O., 1990). Note that these plants did already combine CSHPs with large-scale thermal storage.
Central solar heating is a sub-class of 'large-scale solar heating' systems - a term applied to systems with solar collector areas greater than 500 m².
