BSQ Solar shall sponsor the 14th International Conference on Concentrator Photovoltaic Systems (http://www.cpv-14.org/) to be held from April 16th to 18th, 2018, in the Spanish town of Puertollano. Puertollano, a former mining town that today has transitioned into a local hub of greentech industries and research centers, is located in the region of Castilla La Mancha, the main stage of the adventures of the world famous Don Quixote, as clearly suggested by this year’s conference logo.
Puertollano hosts the headquarters of ISFOC, the Institute for Concentration Photovoltaic Systems, the only research institute in the world specifically created for the research of CPV systems. Since its foundation in 2008, ISFOC has helped dozens of CPV manufacturers to bring their products to the market, by supporting the testing of their technologies not only at a laboratory level but also validating them in the field at a large-scale plant level. In this regard, ISFOC hosts 3MW of demo installations of several different technologies and manufacturers in its facilities in Puertollano, and has also continued pursuing this objective and commitment in cooperation with other relevant partners overseas for example, in MASDAR, Abu Dhabi where it has also set CPV large scale demonstration installations alike.
ISFOC is, since its inception, a public company, wholly owned by the autonomous government of Castilla La Mancha. BSQ also partly owned by the same public institution, maintains a very close relationship with ISFOC, resulting in frequent collaborative R&D and coordinated efforts for the promotion of CPV technology.
The CPV-X conference has been running since 2002, when it started in New Orleans. It is owned by the CPV Consortium, which is the global industry organization supporting the development and long-term success of the CPV industry. This will be the third time that the CPV-X conference is held in Spain, thus, reflecting the outstanding role that this country has played in the development of modern CPV technology and in its industrial take-off.
The venue for CPV-14, the so-called “La Central” of Puertollano, an old thermoelectric plant built in 1917 and recently reconverted for use as a conference center.
