SolarPACES (Solar Power And Chemical Energy Systems) is the leading international network of researchers into thermal solar for dispatchable power and solar chemistry technologies. It is a Technology Collaboration Programme (TCP) organized under the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The SolarPACES vision is that these concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies contribute significantly to the delivery of clean, sustainable energy worldwide. Under the International Energy Agency (IEA) Technology Collaboration Programme (TCP) SolarPACES coordinates international researchers and thermal solar industry experts in conducting research.
By providing leadership as the international network of independent experts, our mission is to facilitate technology development, market deployment and energy partnerships for sustainable, reliable, efficient and cost-competitive concentrating solar technologies.
To realize this mission; SolarPACES coordinates and advances concentrating solar technology research, by focusing on the next generation of technologies; by providing information and recommendations to policy makers and by organizing international conferences, workshops, reports and task meetings.
SolarPACES helps facilitate market deployment; by providing opportunities for joint projects in order to encourage energy partnerships between countries; by developing guidelines and support standards in order to increase the transparency of the market and reduce risks associated with project development; by managing the undertaking of independent studies of strategic interest and by leveraging these activities with other IEA Technology Collaborative Programmes and renewable energy organizations.
The international research facilitated by SolarPACES leads to advances and cost reductions in thermal solar applications from electricity generation and thermal energy storage to the wide variety of industrial processes requiring steam or heat.
Nations in the high DNI regions of the world are ideally suited to the deployment of CSP projects at utility-scale for power generation. Nations within this global sunbelt are able to complement the fluctuating resources of wind and solar through the inclusion of CSP with low-cost thermal energy storage.
