Last October 21, the CSP Technology Day took place via online, a webinar organized by CSP ERANET and H2020-SOCRATCES during the EU Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW). The aim of this event was present the achievements and further challenges of CSP, and present upcoming funding opportunities on the sector to keep feeding the development of this promising sustainable technology.

The webinar began with presentation of Piero De Bonis (DG RTD, Clean Energy Transition) who explained the European policy objectives of the CSP technology. After this intervention was the turn of Marcel Bial (Secretary General of ESTELA) who introduced the current European perspective of Concentrated Solar Plants. He also highlighted that future solar plants should be hybrid concepts with large low-cost storage.

The following session was destined to a round table focused on a general overview of the CSP technology and H2020 SOCRATCES project, followed by 3 main expert blocks: challenges to increase performance and reduce costs in CSP and solar technologies, new materials challenges and energy storage challenges. Moderated by Ricardo Chacartegui (H2020 SOCRATCES project coordinator), the round table stared with Eduardo Zarza (Head of CSP Research Unit at PSA, CIEMAT) who talked about the challenges to increase performance and reduce costs in line-focus solar technologies. Then was the turn of Manuel Silva from University of Seville who explained what the parabolic dishes and the challenges of CSP are related to the energy storage. From CERTH, George Karagiannakis highlighted the importance of energy storage for RES penetration. After was the turn of Michael Geyer from the German Aerospace Centre DLR who presented the CSP storage for repurposing coal plants for a fair energy transition. This round table ended with Luis Pérez-Maqueda from CSIC and his presentation about the thermochemical energy storage (TCES).

Funding opportunities of the CSP Technology was the third session of this webinar where Cristina Garrido from CDTI made an introduction to Horizon Europe CSP related topics. She also highlighted some future related events as the Spanish Infoday Cluster 5, the Commission Infoday Cluster 5 and the Brokerage event Cluster 5.

The event ended with Rachel Tully who presented the CSP ERANET Additional Call Promotion. CSP ERANET aims to coordinate the efforts of Member States, Associated Countries and Regions towards achieving CSP SET Plan objectives, by pooling their financial resources to implement joint calls for R&I proposals, resulting on strategic projects with substantial volumes of investment, which cannot be allocated by individual countries or by the European Commission on their own.

Watch again the webinar!