ASME 2014 8th International Conference on Energy Sustainability

The ASME 2014 8th International Conference on Energy Sustainability took place in Boston (USA) from June 30 to July 2, 2014. This conference has become a popular venue for presentation on the progress in solar thermal research, with a focus on US activities but there was a significant representation from other international researchers. Andrew Beath from ASTRI attended and presented his work in improving the financial performance of CST.

There were fourteen sessions covering the topic of Concentrating Solar Thermal Power, Solar Thermochemistry and Thermal Energy Storage technologies. Many of the CST presentations related to research activity from either the US DOE SunShot Initiative (http://energy.gov/eere/sunshot/sunshot-initiative) or the Solar Research Institute for India and the United States (http://www.seriius.org/). Both of these programs have aggressive goals aimed at cost reduction in emerging and revolutionary solar electricity technologies, so there are obvious similarities to ASTRI research activities. Hot topics at the conference included developments in supercritical carbon dioxide power systems, potential for the use of molten metal as heat transfer fluid, analysis of a variety of thermal and thermochemical storage systems, and improvements to falling particle receivers.  The next conference is planned for San Diego from 29 June to 1 July, 2015 and it will be an opportunity for members of ASTRI to present their work in the future and to network with their US counterparts.