With its proposal SolarSteam-CL, Industrial Solar was selected in the very competitive INNOWWIDE second call to develop a viability assessment to implement solar steam projects in Chile in a heat contracting model. The INNOWWIDE pilot call supports highly innovative European SMEs with a fund of 60 k€/project to enter international markets, helping them to conduct Viability Assessment Projects (VAPs) in cooperation with stakeholders from target countries.
INNOWWIDE – Viability assessment of collaborative and INNOvative business solutions in WorldWIDE markets – is a Horizon 2020 project that aims to fund at least 120 innovative European SMEs and start-ups to conduct Viability Assessment Projects (VAPs) in markets outside of Europe. The second call received nearly 600 applications targeting more than a dozen of destination countries worldwide and selected 70 highly promising projects.
Chile is home to one of the world's largest solar potentials, although still heavily relying on fossil fuel imports to cover its energy demand. Chilean industries use most of their energy for process heat and are commonly confronted with high energy costs, dependence on costly fossil fuels, and price volatility. These factors make the Chilean industrial sector a very promising market for solar concentrating technologies, such as Industrial Solar's Fresnel collectors, for industrial process heating. The SolarSteam-CL project will assess the viability of a new product-market combination: solar steam supply using its innovative Fresnel collector technology under ESCO (Energy Service Company) Heat Purchase Agreement (HPA) for industrial applications in Chile.
The SolarSteam-CL project has a duration of 6 months and will assess different perspectives of the proposed combination of technology and business model, including market potential, technology adaptation, legal compliance, and cost reduction through local sourcing in cooperation with Ingenieria InPower SpA. InPower is a private and limited engineering company based in Santiago, Chile, focusing on energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions and has a wide portfolio of engineering studies, consultancy, and innovative solar thermal and photovoltaic projects.
INNOWWIDE project: https://innowwide.eu/
