News and events

21 Jan 2020

It is rare for an innovation in Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) to go from the lab to commercial in just 5 years. The biggest obstacle to advancing potential cost-cutting improvements in novel CSP technologies is getting them deployed in commercial projects. Risks are high when every CSP plant must be built at utility-scale and must make money right away.

DLR's 1000° C direct absorption particle receiver offers benefits for power and heat applications. (Image credit: DLR)
07 Jan 2020

A new ceramic particle CSP receiver soon to be tested in the U.S. could lower the cost of energy by up to 20% and accelerate industrial heat deployment through particle transport innovations, Reiner Buck, Head of Solar Tower Systems at German Aerospace Centre (DLR), told New Energy Update.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Energy allocated $750,000 of funding to Sandia National Laboratories to accelerate testing of the centrifugal receiver (Centrec), a new high-temperature ceramic particle receiver developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

Greece MINOS 50MW CSP project
03 Dec 2019

Past November 11th, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mizotakis witnessed the text exchange of MINOS 50 MW Concentrating Solar Power project financing Cooperation Agreement. Four major parties of the solar thermal project, namley the financing party, project EPC contractor, project developer, and local construction company signed the Cooperation Agreement.

One module of the 50 MW Yumen beam down system during construction IMAGE@CSPFocus
22 Nov 2019

The novel design, published in Solar Energy journal in September 2019, combines both the solar receiver and the energy storage system in the same unit.

19 Nov 2019

The first CSP ERA NET Joint Call for proposals (2019) will be presented at the CSP Today Madrid event to be held next Tuesday, November 19th. The details of the call and new funding opportunities in the CSP sector will be presented by the CSP ERA NET project coordinator Mr. Cosme Segador Vegas, from Agencia Extremeña de la Energia (AGENEX, Spain).

The tittle of his presentation will be "Funding opportunities for transnational CSP research":

Thursday, 28 November, 2019 - 09:00 to 16:30
Vallourec Deutschland GmbH, Düsseldorf, Germany

The 2nd workshop within the RAISELIFE project takes place on Thursday, 28 November in Düsseldorf, Germany. Among the speakers will be scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE who will talk about the durability of CSP mirrors and absorber coatings as well as the...

23 Oct 2019

At the 2019 SolarPACES Conference, Vast Solar took the SolarPACES Technical Innovation Award for their use of high temperature sodium-based HTF in tower CSP, presented in their paper: Vast Solar: improving performance and reducing cost and risk using high temperature modular arrays a

16 Oct 2019

We would like to invite you to take part in the CSP stakeholders mapping survey launched by the HORIZON-STE project to support the creation of consortia that will fulfil the SET-Plan goals by participating in R&I projects and/or First-of-a-Kind plants.