Solar thermal power is mainly composed of solar thermal collector, as a device designed to collect solar energy transmitted by the solar radiation, to communicate it to a heat transfer fluid as thermal energy (liquid or gas), to accumulated it in a heat storage component. This heat can then be used to produce hot water, for building heating or in various industrial processes.

Solar thermal technology is divided into several types of application, pool heating with light collectors until thermodynamic solar power plants generating with power-heat coupling systems heat and electricity. The coolant fluid may be air, running water, an antifreeze mixture (p. ex. water-glycol), a fluid phase change, or an oil with a higher vaporization temperature for the applications requiring very high temperatures (p. ex. high temperature sterilization).

Solar thermal systems are used primarily for the production of hot water for individual homes, especially also used for solar thermal combined systems for individual and collective homes (p. ex. hot water and building heating), for solar heating plants, for industrial processes and even for solar thermal cooling (p. ex. heat extraction from the ambient air)!