The Solar Heating and Cooling Implementing Agreement was one of the first collaborative R&D programmes to be established within the IEA, and since 1977 its participants have been conducting joint projects on advance active solar, passive solar,  daylighting and the application of these technologies in buildings and other areas, such as agriculture and industry.

To fulfill its mission, the SHC Executive Committee has agreed upon the following objectives: 

• To help achieve a significant increase in the performance of solarheating and cooling technologies and designs.
• To help industry and government increase the market share of solar heating and cooling technologies and designs.
• To be the primary source of technical information and analysis on solar heating and cooling technologies, designs and applications.
• To help educate decision makers and the public on the status and value of solar heating and cooling.

32. Advanced Storage Concepts for Solar Thermal Systems in Low Energy Buildings
The main objective of this Task is to contribute to the development of advanced storage solutions in thermal solar systems for buildings that lead to high solar fraction up to 100% in a typical 45N latitude climate.

33. Solar Heat for Industrial Process
The objective of this Task is to improve conditions for the market introduction of solar heating sys-tems for industrial applications in order to promote a reduction of fossil energy consumption and thereby to develop an environmentally friendly way of industrial production.

34. Testing and Validation of Building Energy Analysis Tools
This Task will investigate the availability and accuracy of building energy analysis tools and engineering models to evaluate the performance of solar and low-energy buildings. The scope of the Task is limited to building energy simulation tools, including emerging modular type tools, and to widely used solar and low-energy design concepts. Activities include development of analytical, comparative and empirical methods for evaluating, diagnosing, and correcting errors in building energy simulation software.

35. PV/Thermal Solar Systems
The objectives of this Task is to catalyse the development and market introduction of high quality and commercial competitive PV/Thermal Solar Systems and to increase general understanding and contribute to internationally accepted standards on performance, testing, monitoring and commercial characteristics of PV/Thermal Solar Systems in the building sector

36. Solar Resource Knowledge Management
The goal of IEA/SHC Task36 "Solar Resource Knowledge Management" is to provide the solar energy industry, the electricity sector, governments, researchers, and renewable energy organizations and institutions with the most suitable and accurate information of the solar radiation resources at the Earth's surface in easily-accessible formats and understandable quality metrics.

37. Advanced Housing Renovation with Solar & Conservation
The objective of this Task is to develop a solid knowledge base how to renovate housing to a very high energy standard [B/C] while providing superior comfort and sustainability and to develop strategies which support market penetration of such renovations explicitly directed towards market segments with high renovation and multipliable potentials

38. Solar Air Conditioning and Refrigeration
The main objective of the Task is the implementation of measures for an accelerated market introduction of solar air conditioning and refrigeration with focus on improved components and system concepts.

39. Polymeric Materials for Solar Thermal Applications
The objective of this Task is the assessment of the applicability and the cost-reduction potential by using polymeric materials and polymer based novel designs of suitable solar thermal systems and to promote increased confidence in the use of these products by developing and applying appropriate methods for assessment of durability and reliability.

40. Net Zero Energy Solar Buildings
The objective of the Task is to study current net-zero, near net-zero and very low energy buildings and to develop a common understanding, a harmonized international definitions framework, tools, innovative solutions and industry guidelines. A primary means of achieving this objective is to document and propose practical NZEB demonstration projects, with convincing architectural quality. These exemplars and the supporting sourcebook, guidelines and tools are viewed as keys to industry adoption. These projects will aim to equalize their small annual energy needs, cost-effectively, through building integrated heating/cooling systems, power generation and interactions with utilities. The planned outcome of the Task is to support the conversion of the NZEB concept from an idea into practical reality in the marketplace. The Task source book and the datasets will provide realistic case studies of how NZEBs can be achieved. Demonstrating and documenting real projects will also lower industry resistance to adoption of these concepts. The Task will build upon recent industry experiences with net-zero and low energy solar buildings and the most recent developments in whole building integrated design and operation. The joint international research and demonstration activity will address concerns of comparability of performance calculations between building types and communities for different climates in participating countries. The goal is solution sets that are attractive for broad industry adoption. The scope includes major building types (residential and non-residential), new and existing, for the climatic zones represented by the participating countries. The work will be linked to national activities and will focus on individual buildings, clusters of buildings and small settlements. The work will be based on analysis of existing examples that leads to the development innovative solutions to be incorporated into national demonstration buildings. Although this Task will not research large community-scale developments, the Task will study the interaction and integration of large numbers of NZEBs with electric and natural gas utilities and community energy systems. The work will be connected to other international collaborations on net zero energy solutions at the community level. This Task will pursue integrated architecture and optimal integrated design solutions that provide good indoor environment for both heating and cooling situations. The process recognizes the importance of optimizing the design for the functional requirement, reducing loads and designing energy systems that pave the way for seamless incorporation of renewable energy innovations as they become cost effective. A goal of the Task is to advance the NZEB concept from an idea into practical reality in the marketplace. The Task source book and the datasets will provide realistic case studies of how NZEBs can be achieved. Demonstrating and documenting real projects will also lower industry resistance to adoption of these concepts.

41. Solar Energy and Architecture
The main goals of the Task are to help achieving high quality architecture for buildings integrating solar energy systems, as well as improving the qualifications of the architects, their communications and interactions with engineers, manufactures and clients. Increased user acceptance of solar designs and technologies will accelerate the market penetration. The overall benefit will be an increased use of solar energy in buildings, thus reducing the non-renewable energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve these goals, work is needed in three main topics: Architectural quality criteria; guidelines for architects by technology and application for new products development. Tool development for early stage evaluations and balancing of various solar technologies integration. Integration concepts and examples, and derived guidelines for architects. The first objective is to define general architectural quality criteria and extract recommendations for solar components/systems, to support manufacturers in developing existing products as well as new products. Specific criteria for the architectural integration of different solar energy components/systems will be developed in cooperation between architects, manufacturers and other actors. New adapted products should result from this activity as well as appropriate ways to use them. The second objective concerns methods and tools to be used by architects at an early design stage, which need to be developed or improved. An example of such a tool can be how to visualize the solar energy concepts to show e.g. clients. Other examples can be tools needed to quantify and clearly illustrate the solar energy contribution and help balance the use of different active and passive solar technologies on the building envelope. The last objective is to provide good examples of architectural integration, in the form of both existing projects that can be analysed as well as proposals for new projects. Buildings, installations and products will be included. Case studies will be an important basis to gain experience regarding the level of successful building integration, achieved solar energy contribution and to identify barriers related to e.g. technical and economical aspects and attitudes. New demonstration buildings will be developed in connection with the Task work and followed at least for the first part of the design stage, to learn from and to test guidelines and tools. Communication tools and guidelines with facts and arguments for architects to help convince their clients to include solar energy systems will be produced. Arguments and facts related to architectural value, energy performance and life cycle costs are essential. Here, the arguments and facts need to be tailored for different building types and owner/user structures. The results will also serve as a basis for teaching material that could be used in e.g. architecture schools. To communicate the value of solar energy designs and technologies, the Task will carry out seminars, workshops and produce articles in e.g. architectural magazines. Scope The scope of the Task includes residential and non-residential buildings. Both new and existing buildings will be included, for the climatic zones represented by the participating countries. In this way the potential impact of the Task can be large. Already cost-effective systems can, with a successful architectural integration, accelerate the market penetration. But also technologies not yet fully cost-effective can benefit from the work to pave the way to successful integration and user/client acceptance, and make the coming market penetration smoother. The work will build upon past IEA Tasks and other research projects related to building integration of solar systems and development of sustainable buildings. The work will be linked to national activities and will focus on individual buildings or groups of buildings with special focus on the building envelope. The work will be based on workshops with architects, manufacturers and other key actors. The workshops may be carried out nationally or regionally based on a common format developed within the Task. In addition, special workshops and seminars may be held in connection with a Task meeting; to let Task experts and representatives from local practitioners and manufacturers come together and discuss barriers and what can be done. Analysis of existing components, systems and buildings will help to develop innovative design solutions. Good examples will also be used to inspire and as help to convince the client.

42. Compact Thermal Energy Storage
Objective The overall objective of this task is to develop advanced materials and systems for the compact storage of thermal energy. This can be subdivided into eight specific objectives: to identify, design and develop new materials and composites for compact thermal energy storage, to develop measuring and testing procedures to characterise new storage materials reliably and reproducibly, to improve the performance, stability, and cost-effectiveness of new storage materials, to develop multi-scale numerical models, describing and predicting the performance of new materials in thermal storage systems, to develop and demonstrate novel compact thermal energy storage systems employing the advanced materials, to assess the impact of new materials on the performance of thermal energy storage in the different applications considered, and to disseminate the knowledge and experience acquired in this task. A secondary objective of this task is to create an active and effective research network in which researchers and industry working in the field of thermal energy storage can collaborate. Scope This task deals with advanced materials for latent and chemical thermal energy storage, and excludes materials related to sensible heat storage. The task deals with these materials on three different scales: material scale, focused on the behaviour of materials from the molecular to the ‘few particles’ scale, including e.g. material synthesis, micro-scale mass transport, and sorption reactions; bulk scale, focused on bulk behaviour of materials and the performance of the storage in itself, including e.g. heat, mass, and vapour transport, wall-wall and wall-material interactions, and reactor design; system scale, focused on the performance of a storage within a heating or cooling system, including e.g. economical feasibility studies, case studies, and system tests. Because seasonal storage of solar heat for solar assisted heating of buildings is the main focus of the SHC IA, this will be one of the primary topics of this task. However, because there are many more relevant applications for TES, and because materials research is not and can not be limited to one application only, this task will focus on multiple application areas. Applications that will be included from the start of this task are: seasonal solar thermal storage, cogeneration and trigeneration and heat pumps, building cooling, district heating, industrial waste heat, and concentrated solar power. Temperature control, e.g. for medical applications, will be taken into account as an interesting spin-off. Finally, as a special theoretical ‘application’, the theoretical limits of advanced storage materials will be investigated as one of the covered applications. This subdivision will be treated with a certain amount of flexibility. If, during the task’s four-year operation, new promising applications are revealed, they can be included in the task’s scope at a later point. Vice versa, if the interests in one of the above-mentioned applications fade, it can be decided to drop this particular application as a focus point of the task. The organisation of the task (see section 5) allows for this flexibility.