Solar Energy Use for Sustainable Development

Solar energy use technologies are striving to deal with the fast-growing energy demand. Solar thermal systems are particularly important for solar heating, hot water preparing and even cooling that for many countries is very actual now. Solar thermal systems need a solar collector that guarantees substantially safe and effective operation. Besides the specific costs of the collector field also aspects like the resulting collector area and suitable collector technology for a specific system have an influence on the decision for a certain collector types. To select the suitable solar energy use equipment technology for a specific system properly, the weather conditions and the industrial load profiles or the characteristics of the solar energy use system always have to be taken into account by reliable and cost effective solution for sustainable energy consumption. For this purpose it was created testing polygon for the solar energy use equipment in Latvian climate conditions, which helps to meet these requirements. The paper presents the first results of the solar energy use equipment’s examination from the testing polygon that was build up on the roof of the Institute of Physical Energetics (IPE) and includes: -an autonomous system for PV elements testing; -a quasi-autonomous for PV elements testing; -a system for solar collectors testing; -devices for solar radiation and weather condition parameters measurement