solar thermal electric

New horizons for CSP as industry faces “make or break” time

The global CSP community is set to meet this 13-14 November as CSP Today Seville Summit returns in its sixth edition, complete with international delegations from the most promising emerging markets for CSP in 2012, two site visits to Gemasolar and Palma del Rio II and the 4th edition of the CSP Today International Awards. The summit comes at a time when the industry faces major challenges to its future viability.
New horizons for CSP as industry faces “make or break” time

Spain is at present the absolute leader in terms of concentrating solar thermal power capacity with approximately 1330 MW and more than 20 years of experience in research and technology developments.

But despite all its potential for expansion, the concentrating solar power industry is facing the most challenging times of all; due to the global economic downturn, lower prices in other energy sources and most importantly, the drastic cuts in Spanish subsidies for this technology, which have created a great deal of uncertainty among the global community.

However, CSP has rapidly captured the attention of international markets willing to invest in this technology, and while Spain accounted for the vast majority of capacity additions in 2011 with 450 MW installed; several developing countries launched their first Concentrating Solar Power plants in markets like Algeria, Australia, China, Egypt, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and many more. Additionally, other countries such as Chile, Israel and Italy have already begun work on legislation needed to support CSP development.

The industry has started to realize that it is currently ‘make or break’ for CSP and that 2012 is the time to react to change and accelerate the industry’s evolution, by diversifying its reach and penetrating new markets.

For that reason, the 6th International Concentrated Solar Thermal Power Summit in Seville has a special focus on industry diversification, new technologies and lucrative new markets. The summit, widely known as CSP Today Seville will take place on the 13th and 14th of November in Seville (Spain).

One of the unique features of this year’s summit is, for the first time the participation of international delegations representing the emerging markets with the upmost potential to invest in CSP, including government representatives and local private companies. Some of the participants already confirmed in these sessions are: the Department of Energy, Eskom and Sastela representing South Africa; the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Godawari Green Energy and FAST representing India; and the Renewable Energy Division of the Ministry of Energy along with the Northern Interconnected System (SING), representing Chile.

Additionally, industry veterans such as Valeriano Ruiz, Luis Crespo, Michael Geyer, José Alfonso Nebrera, Eduardo Zarza, Nikolaus Benz, Florian Klein and Santiago Arias will take part in the discussions. The speaker line-up features leading CSP companies including: Acciona, Abengoa, ACS Cobra, Schott, Torresol Energy, ESTELA, CIEMAT, CENER, DLR and the Energy Unit of the European Commission.

This year top executives from the entire CSP value chain will be in attendance, alongside members from the financial community, government representatives, key associations and new stakeholders.  

New CSP Markets Report released

This month CSP Today launched the CSP Markets Report 2012-2013, which will no doubt inform delegates attending November’s summit.

The report highlights that the shift away from traditional markets such as Spain and the USA means that companies across the CSP industry need to realign their strategies; focusing their attentions on forging new alliances with local firms and adapting to new regulatory and business environments in order to grow in the emerging CSP markets.

For additional information:

CSP Markets Report 2012-2013

Baterías con premio en la gran feria europea del almacenamiento de energía
El jurado de la feria ees (la gran feria europea de las baterías y los sistemas acumuladores de energía) ya ha seleccionado los productos y soluciones innovadoras que aspiran, como finalistas, al gran premio ees 2021. Independientemente de cuál o cuáles sean las candidaturas ganadoras, la sola inclusión en este exquisito grupo VIP constituye todo un éxito para las empresas. A continuación, los diez finalistas 2021 de los ees Award (ees es una de las cuatro ferias que integran el gran evento anual europeo del sector de la energía, The smarter E).