Abstract

One of the most significant challenges facing society today is the need to develop clean energy at reasonable costs, thus ensuring sustainable development to mitigate the effects of climate change. Additionally, in the case of Europe and Spain, it is important to ensure that these new energies utilize domestic resources to avoid the current dependency on foreign sources.

Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology represents a major opportunity to develop clean energy at competitive costs, thereby reducing dependence on external sources. Furthermore, CSP technology easily integrates into the electrical grid and can be stored. Specifically in electricity generation, solar thermal energy can make a decisive contribution to achieving the objectives of the EU energy policy strategy and combating climate change.

From 2009 to 2012, the ConSOLI+Da project was a CENIT grant funded by the CDTI (Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology in Spain). This CDTI grant aimed to stimulate public-private cooperation in industrial research projects of large-scale consortia with high scientific and technical scope. Its mission was to generate new knowledge that could be useful for creating new products, processes, or services, or for integrating technologies of strategic interest.

The main objective of the "Consortium for R&D Solar" (ConSOLI+Da) project was to create an R&D infrastructure to consolidate Spain's leadership in concentrated solar thermal energy technologies. Thanks to this funding, research received a boost, allowing the technology to reach the market sooner, thus enabling Spanish companies to position themselves more competitively in Europe and globally.

This study aims to evaluate the impact of the ConSOLI+Da project, analyzing its significance for the different stakeholders involved in the development of concentrated solar thermal energy technology. To assess the impact, various key performance indicators (KPIs) are being analyzed, such as the total number of scientific articles generated, job creation, and new products generated. Another KPI analyzed is the patents generated, and thanks to this project, 197 patents were generated, with 9 in collaboration among different partners and 67 after its completion.