EU-Project ECOSTAR – Evaluation of Concentrating Solar Power Plants
Funding source: external pageEuropean Union, external pageBBW - Swiss Federal Office of Science and Education
Partners: external pageDLR (D), external pageVGB PowerTech (D), external pageCIEMAT (E), external pageCNRS (F), external pageWIS (IL), external pageIVTAN (R)
The European Union has adopted the potential of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) to contribute significantly to the achievement of a truly sustainable energy system in the medium-to-long term in Europe. Thus, the EC currently supports the implementation of three pilot solar thermal power plants. Cost targeted innovation approaches are needed to achieve cost-competitiveness of this technology in the medium-to-long term.
Objectives of the ECOSTAR coordinating action are:
- to identify the European innovation potential with the highest impact on CSP-cost reduction,
- to focus the European research activities and the national research programs of the partners involved onto common goals and priorities,
- and to broaden its basis of industrial and research excellence, capable to solve the multidisciplinary CSP specific problems.
High-level commitment of six large research centers from Germany (DLR), Israel (WIS), France (CNRS-IMP), Spain (CIEMAT), Switzerland (ETH) and Russia (IVTAN) each with long-year experience in the subject and most of them conducting a significant program on concentrating solar technologies and operating their own facilities, express the readiness to combine their national expertise to achieve these goals. This group has teamed-up with the international association of power and heat generation (VGB PowerTech), which includes many of the European players in the power sector, to ensure by an independent industry assessment, that the identified innovation pathways are feasible from an industry perspective, to disseminate them to the power sector, and to support the identification of further expertise needed.
Project-related Publications