World-leaders in solar technology, Kingspan Renewables, underlines its confidence in the quality of its new production facility by offering a 20 year warranty* for the first time. It’s the first renewables company in Europe to deliver this guarantee on the durability of its evacuated tubes and highlights the commitment of the organisation, which recently opened its new state-of-the-art evacuated tube manufacturing plant in Portadown, Northern Ireland, to keep delivering award-winning performance.

While other competitor products may work quite well for the first few years, the materials used, result in deterioration of performance year after year. This is due to factors like unreliable seals, poor manifold quality or the use of reflectors that degrade over time. Kingspan Renewables, however, puts the emphasis on premium raw materials and production technology and is prepared to back this up with a warranty to match. The new production facility doubles Kingspan Renewables’ production capacity and is now recognised as the most modern facility of its kind in Europe. This highly sophisticated process combines leading-edge machinery and control systems to produce its Thermomax tubes to an even higher standard than before.

Shane Caher, Operations Director of Kingspan Renewables commented: “As the European Union is increasingly focussed on ‘performance over life’ standards, Kingspan Renewables is leading the way in ensuring that our Thermomax tubes and our solar hot water cylinders have a minimum warranty of 20 years. This is real ‘performance over life’. We are fully convinced that the Thermomax products will last much longer than this.”

Ecopower is pleased to announce acreditation as a Solar Thermal Training company in France.

Many business owners will appreciate how difficult it is to receive such accreditation in France, and to be registered as a Solar Training company is testimony to the commitment of Ecopower to ensure the advice and support it gives can be backed up by expert advice and training.

Marc Asker from Ecopower comments, “We are very proud be officially registered as a training company. It certainly wasn’t easy but it’s nice to know our abilities have been recognised”

Planning permission is usually required for Solar Thermal installations in France. This is normally (but not always) by way of a “Declaration Prealable” rather than a “ Declaration de Travaux” but both involve quite a lot of paperwork. Although this is usually submitted to the Marie, it is typically not the Marie that has the final decision but Batiment de France.

It doesn’t usually take long to get the approval, and in the case of a Declaration Prealable, if after one month no objections to the installation have been made it is considered approved in principal and work can usually commence.

However, it is important to get the paperwork absolutely right to avoid any unnecessary delays so Ecopower now offer this service.

Although an initial fee of €100 is charged by Ecopower to do the work, this initial fee is fully reimbursed against the order as and when it is placed so ultimately there is no charge.

Patricia from Ecopower comments, “We trust this gives our clients peace of mind and ensures that all the necessary approvals have been obtained prior to any work commencing”.

The first Kingspan SIP’s house in France was recently completed by Thomas Wood who is responsible for Kingspan SIP’s in France.

SIP’s stands for Structured Insulated Panels and the properties are essentially made of insulation so lifetime and running costs are absolutely minimal. The property has a Thermomax Solar System to supply domestic hot water, Under Floor heating pipe work and the provision for an Air to Water heat pump, all installed by Ecopower.

No heat pump or other heat source has been installed to provide the energy for the under floor heating system - the under floor pipe work has simply been installed as a precaution and to future proof the building.

Tom and his crew finished the project ahead of schedule despite being held up by bad weather during the initial stages of the build.

Tom comments, “Once the groundwork’s were complete the structure of the building was actually completed in 11 days. Although this was our first SIP’s build everything went smoothly and we expect to be able to reduce this build time significantly in the future”.

Thermomax products were the first to receive the European quality mark for solar collectors—the Solar Keymark. Awarded by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), the Solar Keymark provides assurance that the product complies with the highest European Standard(s). Solar collectors and solar thermal systems are rigorously tested concerning their efficiency, usability, safety and reliability.

In addition the Thermomax Solar Tubes were submitted to a voluntary standard to test its tubes’ resistance by meeting Hail Impact (EN12975) test requirements. The test subjects the collectors to 1 inch ice balls fired at 50 miles per hour and Thermomax exceeded the standard, showing the durability and strength of the product in all weather conditions.