Category Archives: News

Breaking Barriers: SolarPACES conference welcomes its first chairwoman

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At Women+ in Concentrated Solar, we are thrilled to celebrate a significant moment in the history of the SolarPACES conference. For the first time ever, a woman, Arantxa Fernández from CIEMAT-PSA, has been appointed as Chairperson—an exciting step forward for gender diversity in the concentrated solar community! This achievement reflects the growing recognition of the invaluable contributions of women in solar energy research, development, and implementation.

Arantxa received her BS/MEng in Industrial Engineering in 2004 from the University of Málaga, Spain, her MS degree in Solar Energy in 2007 from the University of Almería, Spain, and her PhD degree in Environmental Engineering in 2013 from the University of Almería, Spain. She has developed her entire research career at CIEMAT-Plataforma Solar de Almería, with 23 years of experience in concentrated solar thermal energy, particularly in materials for CST technology, an R&D line that she currently leads at CIEMAT. This research area, driven by Arantxa, fosters close collaboration with DLR.

The appointment of Arantxa not only highlights the progress made toward greater inclusivity but also serves as an inspiration for future generations of women pursuing careers in this field.

We extend our sincere congratulations to Arantxa and look forward to the continued advancement of SolarPACES.

You can read Arantxa’s invitation for SolarPACES 2025 in the SolarPACES conference webpage.

Here’s to a more diverse and inclusive future in concentrated solar!

Free Online CSP Courses Coming This Fall

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Northeastern University is developing free online CSP courses that will be offered to the public this fall. Please complete this short questionnaire if you are interested in the courses.

The courses are meant to support prospective, new, or existing workers in the CSP industry. The planned topics include:

1) What is CSP: An overview of the discipline and its advantages
2) Incident solar radiation prediction, ray tracing basics, losses, software available and control needs
3) Receiver design: basic design and numerical approaches
4) Energy storage, need and cost factors
5) Potential for production processes at high temperature high heat fluxes in CSP systems

2023 overview

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Here is our 2023 overview. At a glance. With numbers.

New website
Visitors
Pages visited
Followers
Followers
Followers
Experts
in our database
Mentor-mentee connections
Webinar
Online
networking events
In-person
networking event
Representations
at conferences

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