On the basis of the solar combi plus systems developed by industrial partners, training courses on their “package solutions” will be offered in the following countries: Austria, Italy, France, Greece and Spain. These courses will be elaborated with the close partnership of European solar cooling experts such as Fraunhofer ISE, AEE INTEC, TECSOL, CRES, EURAC, IKERLAN and University of Milano.

The courses will contain the techno-economical theoretical background as well as practical aspects of the package solutions to give all the keys to realize a successful installation for the client and explain the benefits of the system.

The training courses’ first target group are (solar thermal) installers, because the goal of the packaged solutions is to avoid the need of engineering. However, the courses are of course also open to architects and engineers that are interested in the technical features of the systems so that they can consider them in their projects.
The content of the training courses will be elaborated in winter 2008 and the courses should occur within year 2009. 

Three pilot training courses per industry partner for 20 – 30 people in the different participating countries are foreseen (at least one per target country, distribution depends also on chiller partners’ target markets and solar thermal partners)

The general concept foresees 2 day-courses: 1 day theory and 1 day practice on the package.

This time is needed, because not only installation, but also operation and maintenance need to be described, which are quite specific, and in general not known for absorption/adsorption chillers.

The training courses will be announced online (on project and partner websites), on fairs and through the usual dissemination channels of the industry partners. Please check back the homepage content regularly to know when a course in your country will occur.

The benefits of these courses will be:

• for solar thermal companies: On the one hand relation with chiller partners on training courses can be established, on the other hand, if no such partnership exists, the participation in training courses might open new collaborations and markets
• for professional groups: detailed information on concrete package solutions
• for potential consumers: installers trained on package solutions guarantee for high quality installations
  

In the framework of another ongoing EU project (SOLAIR), training courses will take place. This project is aimed at promoting the market implementation of small and medium-sized solar air-conditioning systems. Check the SOLAIR webpage for dates and locations of training courses (http://www.solair-project.eu).