CSP World

The ‘Scientific and Technological Alliance for Guaranteeing the European Excellence in Concentrating Solar Thermal Energy’ (STAGE-STE) project, led by Spain’s Solar Platform of Almeria (PSA-CIEMAT), has received the maximum score from European Commission Call for Integrated Research Projects and will be awarded with €10 million.

The four years length project is expected to kick-off this fall and will be coordinated by Julian Blanco, a leading researcher of the PSA. It comprises 40 members including institutions and companies all over the world such as DLR, ENEA, Areva, Acciona, Schott or CSIRO among others.

The objective for this project, as stated in a PSA-CIEMAT press release, will be to bring together the main European research agencies in a benchmark organization that will define the priorities, aims and the research agenda for the next 10 years by joining current European funds with those available at each of the countries involved in the development of this technology.

At a conference, attended by CSP World, held last March in Madrid, Spain, showing off the activities conducted in the European Energy Research Alliance, the STAGE-STE working plant was presented. It comprises 12 working packages, half of them focused on management and coordinating tasks and the other half for ‘coordinated research activities’.

Spain’s CIEMAT will lead the project with the support of Cyprus Institute, CTAER, NRS-PROMES, CEA and Fraunhofer-ISE as coordinators covering different topics. The research focused working packages will be coordinated by ENEA, DLR, PSI, CIEMAT and CENER.

The European mess

Europe’s organization regarding CSP research initiatives is tough to figure out. A number of programs, projects and organizations –both focused on CSP or comprising CSP as a topic- have been established which, in many cases, objectives are overlapped between them.

EREC, EUFORES, EUREC, SET-Plan, 7^th Framework Programme, Horizon 2020, SETIS, EERA, ESFRI, SOLLAB, SFERA, ESTELA, EUSOLARIS, JP-CSP or SEII are part of this mess of acronyms and institutions, jointly with a huge number of State-level entities.

Regarding this project, it seems the STAGE-STE project is included under the Joint Programme for Concentrated Solar Power (JP-CSP), which in turn is part of the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA), which in turn is part of the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan).