Symposium advances Australian solar thermal industry

The Australian Solar Thermal Research Initiative (ASTRI) - a collaboration of research institutions aiming to transform Australia into a leader in solar thermal technologies - last week held a symposium to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and foster connections amongst the stakeholders within the solar thermal community in Australia.

ASTRI is supported by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), whose CEO, Ivor Frischknecht, said the organisation is at the forefront of efforts to forge strong links between researchers and industry players interested in deploying solar thermal technologies into the field. He noted that the symposium “highlighted the advantages of solar thermal in smoothing out peak electricity demand and as an alternative to costly network upgrades in fringe-of-grid regions”.

“Australia has one of the best solar resources in the world and solar thermal has the advantage of being able to collect and store energy for use on demand at later times,” Frischknecht said.

“The symposium brought together solar thermal researchers and end users to share knowledge and discuss ways to lower the cost and improve the value and deployment of solar thermal internationally and in Australia.”

Symposium attendees included Dr Ranga Pitchumani, chief scientist of the US DOE SunShot Initiative; and Dr Luis Crespo, president of the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association. Both commended ASTRI for delivering a well-structured, professional program.

Presentations from the symposium can be found at http://www.astri.org.au/publications/.