Towards Competitive, Reliable, Safe and Sustainable Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Plants

This training project (TOPCSP) will offer 10 promising doctoral candidates a unique international, intersectoral and interdisciplinary research and innovation framework that will boost their excellence in the development of innovative technologies capable of solving the challenges currently faced by the solar thermal power industry in the EU and worldwide. Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) with Thermal Energy Storage (TES) is a key technology to support the transition to a competitive and sustainable energy system. However, an effort is needed to make this technology competitive by increasing its efficiency, reducing its costs and improving its reliability and environmental profile. TOPCSP project will include research activities aimed at reducing the cost of current CSP plant, increasing the temperature of the heat transfer media of the next generation of CSP plants, developing more efficient power blocks and optimizing the plant design. CSP research requires high-level human resources covering a wide range of competences. TOPCSP will be able to train researchers with the technical knowledge and transferable skills needed to contribute to this aim from either the academic or the industrial sector. The consortium of this proposal will provide balanced scientific and applied skills together with the global vision of the CSP industry that will maximize the employability of the trained researchers. The consortium comprises 8 academic beneficiaries with a long record of research on CSP and two industrial beneficiaries, which are leading companies in the sector. The associated partners of the network include the largest R&D & test centre focused on CSP in Europe, high-tech companies specialized in the different subsystems of the CSP plant, an agency for new technologies, energy and sustainable development, and a training company specialized in R&I project development and management.