Economic and energetic assessment of industrial-scale solar thermal energy in the Visegrad Region

The Visegrád group's energy security is attributed to the national energy potential of each country. The energy potential results from the lack of crude oil and natural gas resources, limited access to the transmission network, and limited fuel storage. This bloc relies on raw material supplies from Russia, which is not evenly applied to all group members. Poland and Hungary have good storing potential, but it is not enough to achieve energy security and independence. Russia aims to keep control of this market while group members try diversifying their supplies to increase energy security. The purpose of this article is to present the energy balance in the Visegrád region. The analysis is based on the status of the renewable energy targets in the production, demand, import and export. Also, to determine the stability degree of these energy parameters. The material source is the literature and the energetic data from the European statistic's official agency Eurostat and European commission reports. From an energetic aspect, the four capitals were considered as a case study for a food processing plant with annual hot water demand of 43 MWh to evaluate the performance of the solar thermal energy. The simulation was conducted using T*Sol software considering 16 evacuated-tube collectors B. Schweizer Energy AG manufacturer. The chosen process heating system has a buffer tank and a continuous flow heater. Each collector was inclined according to the optimum angle for each case study. As a result, it was found that the energy demand in the Visegrád region is entirely related to the economic situation. In contrast, Political and energy development have a more significant impact than economic factors. From an energetic aspect, solar thermal energy is evident for Hungary and Slovakia since they have up to 20% solar yields compared to Poland and the Czech Republic. Nevertheless, the solar irradiation on the collector field is high enough to consider solar thermal energy solutions integrated into food and industrial processes.