Blanco, a world-renowned solar scientist with almost three decades of academic, research and development managerial experience, joined ASTRI from Spain’s National Renewable Energy Centre (CENER), where he was Director of the Solar Thermal Energy Department.
During his many years of research, he has made an invaluable contribution to the international solar thermal industry, including paving the way for the first commercial solar thermal system installed in Spain and chairing the International Energy Agency’s SolarPACES executive committee, the 20-country network for solar thermal collaboration.
“Australia has one of the best solar resources in the world. It is a natural fit for an international solar thermal research collaboration to use this resource and our expertise to make solar power the cheapest, cleanest energy source it can be," Blanco said.
“We will reduce the cost of solar thermal to just 12 cents a kilowatt hour by 2020 and provide zero-emission energy to people when they need it. It’s a technological leap but we will do it. We are working with the best in the world.”
ASTRI is an $87 million, eight year international collaboration transforming the energy industry in Australia by bringing down the cost of solar thermal, a unique energy technology that can create electricity, heat and fuels.
Blanco is the Chair of the Executive Committee of SolarPACES, the International Energy Agency Implementing Agreement on Solar Power and Chemical Energy Systems; he has been Director of the Plataforma Solar de Almeria, the largest European concentrating solar thermal power (CSTP) Research Facility; Principal Investigator of the European Union SOLGAS and SIREC projects – two large CSTP demonstration and technology development projects which paved the way to the first commercial CSTP tower systems installed in Spain.
He is also adviser to the President of the Andalusian Energy Agency; Executive Secretary of SolarPACES; and full professor and Chair of the Engineering Department of the University of Texas at Brownsville.
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