Members of Scientific and Technical Comittee
Coordinator
Dr. Guglielmo Liberati
Born in Florence, Italy, Dr. Guglielmo Liberati got the degree in Physics in 1975 at University of Florence discussing an experimental thesis on nuclear electronics.
After some years spent teaching at University and as a consultant, in 1979 he joined Enel Research to be involved in the construction and operation of Eurelios 1 MWe Central receiver Solar Power plant.
In the course of the years with Enel he was involved in many experimental research fields: flue gas treatment systems, Hydrogen, CAES, innovative measurement systems. From 2000 to 2002 he was Business Development Manager for Fuel Cell activities.
In 2002 he joined the Enel Technology Scouting group with targets ranging from flue gas cleanup, to coal yard handling, power plant/agriculture interaction, solar plants and green Harbors.
In 2008 joined the Archimede 5 MWe Molten Salt Solar Plant team and became Project Manager. The plant was inaugurated on July 2010.
At the end of 2010 he left Enel and he is now a free consultant and cooperates with ESTELA.
He holds a post University Master degree on Innovation Management.
He wrote many papers on national and international publications and has some patents.
He is also Vice President of Italian Hydrogen Forum which he co-founded in 1997.
Core Group
Dr. Manuel J. Blanco
Dr. Manuel J. Blanco is the Director of the Solar Thermal Energy Department of the National Renewable Energy Centre of Spain (CENER).
He has twenty-nine years of experience as a solar researcher. During all these years, his research work has mainly focused on advancing the state-of-the-art of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technologies (e.g., central receiver systems and parabolic-trough solar power plants) and on increasing their market penetration.
He has produced sixty-four technical publications, two doctoral theses, and two master theses, as well as a multitude of professional engineering reports and feasibility studies. He have also participated in a large number of national and international expert groups and committees, and represented his country, Spain, in various international scientific forums, and has played a leading role in most major CSP R&D and demonstration projects, undertaken in Europe in the last twenty five years.
From 1996 to 2002, he was the Director of the Plataforma Solar de Almería, one of the three most important solar energy research centers in the world -a position he left to join the faculty of the University of Texas at Brownsville, where he chaired the Engineering Department for more than four years, and reached the position of Full Professor with Tenure in less than tree.
Prof. Manuel Collares Pereira
Professor Manuel Collares Pereira, as the Director of Department for Strategic Innovation and Development at DREEN Water.Re.Energy and professor at the Universidade de Évora, has extensive work in the field of solar. Beginning in the 1970s, Prof. Collares Pereira conducted pioneering work on the first CPC collector (Compound Parabolic Concentrators) prototypes at the University of Chicago. He continued this work over the years until his involvement led to the first commercial production of CPC collectors in the world. Over the past 30 years, Prof. Collares Pereira has worked diligently to share the results of all his scientific work, which ranges from water purification, solar desalination, solar cooking, solar detoxification, solar process heating, PV applications, solar cooling and recently, solar thermal electricity. To support his mission, Prof. Collares Pereira has founded numerous organizations, such as the Centre for Energy Conservation, the then acting Portuguese Energy Agency (CCE- Centro para a Conservação de Energia).
In the course of his scientific career, he has done extensive research in Solar Energy as a specialist in Optics and Thermodynamics. Author of a book on RE and Energy Efficiency and of a large number (>180) of scientific publications in areas like Non Imaging Optics applied to Solar Thermal, Photovoltaics, Illumination and Photocatalysis, Solar Irradiation Statistics, Solar Thermal Systems Design and Engineering, Domestic Hot Water and Heating and Cooling Systems, Absorption Cooling Equipment, Solar Drying, Solar Ponds, Solar Cooking, Photo catalysis for water treatment, Greenhouse Heating, etc. He has been the recipient (2008) of several prizes the most recent and important being the Solar Heating and Cooling IEA award for lifetime research and other achievements in this area.
Dr. Fabrizio Fabrizi
Ing. Fabrizio Fabrizi - He received academic degrees at the Sapienza, University of Rome in Nuclear Engineering (Rome, 1976). Since 1979 he works at the ENEA, Centro Ricerche Casaccia, Rome, as: Researcher in industrial Thermal-hydraulics; Head of "Industrial Thermal-hydraulics" Laboratory (1984); Director of "Industrial Plant Technologies" Division (1991); Director of "Environmental Services" Sector (1993); Appointed Special Administrative Manager of the “Consorzio NA3” public company for MSW disposal in landfill (1996); Head of Experimental Facility Engineering for the Solar Thermodynamic Project (2001); Head of Thermodynamic Solar Laboratory (2010, up to day). Project management for many of R&D programmes focused to the analysis of industrial plants technologies and to the experimental qualification of innovative or advanced technologies for processes and equipments. He is also expert in thermo-fluid-dynamics, thermo-mechanics, energetic and environmental engineering, and Concentrating Solar Power technologies.
Dr. Gilles Flamant
Ing. In chemistry (ENSCP, Paris), PhD in Chemical and Thermal Engineering, University of Toulouse. Director of the CNRS lab “Processes, Materials and Solar Energy”that operates the French Solar Concentrating Facilities Platform in Font Romeu-Targasonne.
Prof. Hans Müller-Steinhagen
Prof. D.Eng. Dr.-Ing. (habil) Hans Müller-Steinhagen is the Rektor (president) of Technische Universität Dresden, the largest university with a strong technological focus in Germany. Following a distinguished career in Canada, New Zealand and England, he became the Director of the Institute of Technical Thermodynamics of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and the Director of the Institute for Thermodynamics and Thermal Engineering of the University of Stuttgart from 2000-2010. In this capacity, he was leading 270 research staff working on topics related to heat and mass transfer, process thermodynamics, multi-phase flow, fuel cells, solar technology and energy systems analysis. Prof. Müller-Steinhagen is the author or co-author of more than 600 publications, and the recipient of numerous international awards and prizes. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Chairman of the Advisory Board of the DESERTEC Industrial Initiative (Dii) and a member of many supervisory and advisory boards.
Prof. Robert Pitz-Paal
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Robert Pitz-Paal graduated from the Ludwig Maximillians University in Munich with a degree in physics in 1988. In 1993 he received his PhD in mechanical engineering and 1993 he joined the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). Today he is the co-director of DLR Solar Research Institute with more than 100 members of staff located in Cologne, Stuttgart and Almería, Spain. This position is jointly assigned with a professorship for Solar Technology at the RWTH Aachen University.
Dr. Werner Platzer
Dr. Werner J. Platzer is director of the division “Solar Thermal and Optics” with about 100 persons within Fraunhofer ISE. He is actively involved with research on solar thermal power plants and concentrator optics since the beginning of 2005.
Before he has worked in the field of solar facade technology concerning material development, experimental testing, optical and thermal simulation, he is lecturing solar thermal energy at the University of Freiburg since 1984. He authored about 170 articles, books and conference papers on optical and thermal measurements, window and facade technology, control issues and energy performance assessment. He has coordinated international and national projects, contributing to others. The current emphasis is on optical qualification, energy performance, optimisation of solar thermal power and combination of solar cooling and solar process heat with medium-scale solar electricity generation. He is active within Tasks 1 and 3 of SolarPaces.
Dr. Manuel Silva Pérez
Dr. Industrial Engineer, Manuel Silva Pérez has twenty-six years of engineering experience, ten years as Associate Professor at the Engineering School, University of Seville, and is responsible of Solar Thermal Concentrating Systems and Solar Radiation Projects at the Group of Thermodynamics and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy Engineering, University of Seville.
Coordinator or participant in national and International projects including the following topics: solar resource measurement, evaluation and assessment; feasibility analysis of solar thermal power projects, including site characterization, estimation of electricity generation, optimization of the solar field; R&D projects for component development, performance evaluation of solar thermal concentrating systems. Two years free-lance engineer, collaborating in international R&D projects in the field of Solar Thermal Concentrating Systems. Five years member of the International Test and Evaluation team at Plataforma Solar de Almería (Spain). He holds a PhD in Engineering for the University of Seville (Spain).
Dr. Eduardo Zarza Moya
Dr. Eduardo Zarza Moya. He was born in 1958 in Huelva (Spain). He got his Master degree in Industrial Engineering in 1986 and his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from University of Seville in 2003.
At present he is working at the Plataforma Solar de Almería (PSA), which is the largest R+D centre in the World devoted to solar concentrating systems. He is the Head of the PSA R+D Unit on Solar Concentrating Systems, composed of 31 scientists and researchers working on industrial applications of concentrated solar radiation, including electricity production, hydrogen production and industrial heat processes in the range from 125ºC to 2000ºC. He has been working for the last 25 years with solar concentrating systems. He has been the Director of several national and International R+D projects related to solar energy and parabolic trough collectors (the projects DISS, Solar Thermal Desalination, CAPSOL, PREDINCER, etc..). His specific R+D areas have been: solar seawater desalination, parabolic trough solar collectors and direct steam generation. He has written three books, 12 chapters of books and more than 50 proceedings in International congresses related to solar energy. He has organizad several national and International courses and seminars related to solar energy. He is a peer reviewer of many scientific magazines and Publications (Solar Energy, ASME Journal of Solar Energy Engineering, Applied Thermal Engineering, ENERGY - The International Journal, Chemical Engineering and Processing, and others). He collaborates in many Master courses and Seminars devoted to renewable energies and efficiency. He is a member of the Spanish AENOR standardization committee for solar thermal power plants, and a member of the Scientific Committee of CIC-Energigune.