Annual Report 2006 - Plataforma Solar de Almería

MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR
A message from the Director
Diego Martínez Plaza
2006 was marked by a very special event for all of us, the celebration of
the 25th anniversary of the Plataforma Solar de Almería.
For this reason, the year was full of illustrious visits. Special mention
should be made of the visits this year by both of the Ministers of Education
and Science who held the office, María Jesús Sansegundo and Mercedes
Cabrera. The Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Joan Clos, also
visited us accompanied by the Counselor for Innovation, Science and Enterprise
of the Andalusian Government, Francisco Vallejo.
The celebrations reached their high point at a reception held at our facilities
on October 28 th . Those of our fellow workers who were here at the PSA
on September 21, 1981 and who continue to lend their services at our Center
were recognized at an endearing ceremony at which the Director General of
CIEMAT presented a commemorative award to each of them.
This may be a good time for us to reflect that in view of the present commercial
deployment of this technology, with the first solar thermal power
plants on the verge of taking off, we have been given the best anniversary
present we could wish for.
Furthermore, our Center is growing, as if in these twenty-five years it had
reached adulthood. The PSA is consolidating nationally and even worldwide,
as the center of reference for the study of solar concentrating technology. We
are growing in both quantity and quality of human resources, and also in material
resources to carry out our task.
Of course, the decisive support of our superiors at the CIEMAT-Moncloa is
clearly a catalyst for this growth.
The interest of industry in the applications we are developing at our Center
is stronger all the time. We receive a large number of visits from businesses
who want to know more about the technology and important collaboration
agreements have been signed with industry.
To finish rounding off the year, the PSA was one of the organizers of the
‘13 th SolarPACES Symposium’ along with the University of Seville School of
Engineering and the Spanish Association of businesses in the solar thermal
electric sector ‘PROTERMOSOLAR’. The symposium, held at the School of Engineering,
was the most successful of all the SolarPACES Symposiums thus
far. Again, the boom this technology is experiencing, reinforced by the focus
on industry by the organizers, contributed to this success.
Similarly, and as has come to be our custom, we had a stand at the third
‘Renewable Energies and Water Technologies Fair’ in Almería.
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