Young researchers attend CyI’s annual school on solar technologies

Young researchers from nine countries, from Europe, the Middle East, Chile and South Africa, attended the Annual School held in Nicosia on the cutting edge technology of Solar Thermal Energy (STE). The school was organised from November 7 to 11 by the Cyprus Institute in collaboration with its partners, European institutions recognised as centres of excellence in the field: ENEA (Italy), CIEMAT-PSA (Spain), CNRS-PROMES (France) and RWTH-Aachen (Germany).

This activity is part of the Networking Excellence for Solar Thermal Energy Research (NESTER) project, which is funded by the European Commission with the aim of upgrading the scientific and innovation performance of the Cyprus Institute in the field of Solar-Thermal Energy.

This first school contributed to this goal by bringing together 30 early stage researchers from four different continents – 13 from Cyprus, including four Turkish Cypriots. General topics on solar thermal research were addressed during the first week. During the second week, two specialised topics were chosen for this year’s school: Solar Optics and Desalination.

A total of ten international lecturers and nine lecturers from the Cyprus Institute went through the 31 lectures and five afternoon intense exercise sessions. The attendees and the international lecturers had the opportunity to visit the state of the art facilities for cogeneration of electricity and desalinated water of PROTEAS at Pentakomo, the linear FRESNEL system for the Built environment and the Thermal Energy Storage Laboratory (TESLA) at The Cyprus Institute´s headquarters in Nicosia.

The event acted as a catalyst to fostering synergies between institutions involved in STE technologies and projects among the young scientists that attended. It received positive comments from participants and lecturers alike.

The next NESTER school will be organised in Autumn 2017 at the CyI, further promoting Cyprus as a regional hub for innovative solar technologies.