Joint programming actions to foster innovative CSP solutions

Objective

CSP ERANET is the result of a joint EU will for bridging the gap between research and commercial deployment in the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology, so this technology can play a main role in the European renewable electricity generation in a medium term. For this purpose, the main European countries and regions, with roles to play in the future CSP deployment (industrial or academic stakeholders), have committed their economic resources to create big-scale funding synergies able to finance strategic CSP research. CSP ERANET aims to coordinate the efforts of Member States, Associated Countries and Regions towards achieving CSP SET Plan objectives, by pooling their financial resources to implement joint calls for R&I proposals, resulting on strategic projects with substantial volumes of investment, which cannot be allocated by individual countries or by the European Commission on their own. By pooling funds, CSP ERANET will achieve to finance large-scale projects implementing medium/high TRL research, which will accelerate the time to commercial deployment of affordable, cost-effective and resource-efficient CSP technology solutions. CSP ERANET constitutes a public-public partnership gathering 11 representatives from Member States, Associated Countries and Regions which have committed more than 9 million EUR public fund for launching the Cofund joint calls for proposals and more than 6 million EUR for the additional call to finance transnational research actions. During the 5 years of CSP ERANET the consortium intends to pool together financial resources from multiple countries, the Commission and the private sector, in order to invest more than 36 million euros (Cofund + Additional Call) in researching for innovative CSP solutions. This investment will finance 8 topics which were selected among the 12 R&I topics defined in the CSP Implementation Plan produced by the SET Plan temporary working group (TWG) on CSP.