Recent Advances in Solar Thermal Technologies and Solar Energy Application

Dear Colleagues,

Demographic growth and the right of all populations to access ever-increasing technological standards are leading to a constant increase in global energy needs. On the other hand, the need to limit pollution and global warming of the planet increasingly requires the search for energy sources and the use of systems and processes that limit the production of greenhouse gases.

In this context, solar energy, which constitutes the most abundant energy source, still poses considerable challenges to its intensive exploitation, linked first and foremost to the low energy density of this source and the need to sacrifice large surfaces for its collection. Even the intermittency of this source constitutes a limit that scientific research is attempting to overcome by developing increasingly high-performance storage systems.

The current applications of solar energy are multiple, from the production of electrical energy by the photovoltaic effect to the production of mechanical energy through thermodynamic solar systems, and finally the production of thermal energy for both civil and industrial uses.

In particular, given their vast field of use, both for the user and for the thermal level of the energy to be produced, solar thermal technologies represent an interesting field of research for optimizing the efficiency of systems that use this source and for the development of increasingly advanced thermal storage systems.

This Special Issue aims to present and disseminate the most recent advances related to solar thermal technologies and solar energy applications.

Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Solar thermal technologies;
• Thermal energy storage;
• Solar energy collection and concentration;
• Direct steam generation by solar energy;
• Heat transfer enhancement in solar thermal plants;
• Solar energy integration in smart grids;
• Monitoring and control of solar thermal plants;
• New materials for solar thermal plants;
• Heat transfer fluids.

Prof. Dr. Langella Giuseppe
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• solar energy
• thermal energy storage
• solar energy collection and concentration
• direct steam generation
• heat transfer
• solar energy integration in smart grids
• monitoring and control of solar thermal plants
• new materials for solar thermal plants
• heat transfer fluids