With the global climate continuously deteriorating, the implementation of carbon neutrality has risen to the basic consensus at an international level. The exploitation of renewable energy, especially solar energy, is undoubtedly an integral part of the carbon neutrality strategy to effectively reduce carbon dioxide emissions and environmental pollution.

Solar thermal utilization is one of the dominant solar energy technologies that use various solar collectors to absorb and convert solar energy into thermal energy. The harvested thermal energy can be directly utilized or flexibly converted to other energy forms according to the user’s demands, such as water/building heating, water desalination, solar cooling, thermochemistry, solar power generation, etc. In addition, thermal energy storage also provides a promising cost-efficient, high-capacity alternative for stand-alone energy systems.

To promote and spread the latest solar thermal research for contributions to the realization of carbon neutrality, this Special Issue aims to gather cutting-edge research involving solar thermal technologies. We welcome original research and review articles.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Non-tracking or tracking solar collector for the harvest of low or high-temperature thermal energy
• Enhanced solar thermal conversion technology and advanced solar thermal materials
• Hybrid solar thermal technology integrated photovoltaics
• Solar thermal storage technology and advanced storage materials
• Application of solar thermal energy in buildings, water desalination, cooling, thermochemistry, concentrated solar power, etc
• Application of solar thermal collectors and thermal storage in establishing a net-zero energy community