The SOLARX consortium met for the 3nd General Assembly in Madrid, on November 11 and 12. Hosted by ACCIONA, all project partners and technical experts from the End-Users Advisory Board gathered for productive and intense exchanges. During the two-day meeting, the consortium members presented their latest progress, and discussed the challenges to meet the ambitious goals of the project.
The event, attended by 14 partners in person and additional 7 partners joining online, showcased a commitment to open dialogue and effective collaboration. The assembly played a crucial role in facilitating discussions on project advancements, overcoming challenges, and shaping the trajectory for the last stage of the projects collaborative research and technological developments.
After an insightful introduction from ACCIONA, a warm welcome was done first, to the Cyprus Institute, the new partner that has recently joined the SOLARX project, bringing their expertise and innovative spirit to our mission of advancing solar energy technologies. This collaboration has been made possible through the Hop On Facility scheme, which aims to improve the inclusiveness of Horizon Europe by involving more research institutions from widening countries in collaborative projects.
The next special welcome was done to one of our Advisory Board member attending the meeting in person, a renowned technical expert, Srdjan Milenkovic, from Tewer Engineering, who have both an interest in and influence over the technologies developed within the SOLARX project. Tewer has developed several R&D projects that increase their ground-breaking position as Solar energy experts. The Advisory Board members have been carefully selected and soon we will share information on this regard. A thorough stakeholder analysis was conducted to identify and evaluate these members, ensuring a diverse and influential board. Each member is a high-level representative from their respective stakeholder group, committed to guiding the consortium towards achieving greater project impact.
The two-day meeting agenda has been meticulously crafted to cover a range of critical subjects of technical sessions, starting with detailed insights into efficient project management strategies provided by Jörn-Frederik Wotzlaw (accelopment). Then, the full consortium actively participated in discussions on how to follow-up on the challenges to advance the SOLARX Configurator models. The open discussion allowed all partners participate to in approaching the optimal solutions for the different scenarios about energy demands and prices. The different scenarios and diverse technologies to be considered for the SOLARX configurator were raised and will be further analysed with the involved partners.
Afterwards, the first day remained fully focused on comprehensive discussions covering various aspects of the project. Presentations ranged from the progress updates on the Economic, environmental and social assessment by Aude Marie Bechu, Amir Arasteh and Matti Juhani Koivisto (DTU) and followed by our experts on the CPV receiver’s implementation: Luc Fréchette (CNRS), Gwenaëlle Hamon and Emeric Désilets (Université de Sherbrooke).
The second-day session started with detailed plans for the upcoming strategies to implement the communication, dissemination and exploitation activities by Miriam Frances (accelopment). Following the Exploitation plans, Marta Murkowska (EMD International) showcased new inputs to complete the Roadmap and raised different scenarios towards system integration and technology commercialisation. Afterwards, solar management and control strategies by Maitane Ferreres (Fraunhofer ISE) were presented. Finally, the new partner, Kypros Milidonis (CYI) showcased the Airborne LCC monitoring system pilot implementation. Group discussions on specific topics continued into the afternoon, paving the way for progress updates presented the following day.
Many interactions about the modelling brought the importance for considerable preparation, innovative thinking, and excellent cross-disciplinary collaboration, which the consortium is striving to maintain through the upcoming stage of the project. The host of the meeting and R&D Technical Responsible from our industrial partner ACCIONA, concluded together with all the participants: “A wonderful meeting, very collaborative and productive. It is nice to advance with these travel companions. Together we are like the sun rays focusing on our objectives… PV, H2 and Process heat.”
Finally, the full consortium participated in a guided tour of ACCIONA’s facilities.
