The University of Almeria held the ceremony for its Award for the Promotion of Company - University Research on Tuesday 29 June. Among the winners of these awards, which were published at the end of 2009, is the company GEMASOLAR 2006, S.A., which received an acknowledgeemnt in the category of “Honorary Award for Companies and Institutions which are notable for their research activities conducted with the University of Almeria’.

Torresol Energy’s Director of Technology, Juan Ignacio Burgaleta, was in charge of receiving the award in the presence of the Dean of the University of Almeria, Pedro Molina García, the Chairman and the Secretary of the Social Council, Joaquín Moya Angeler-Cabrera and Trinidad Cabeo Rodríguez respectively, as well as of the Regional Delegate of Economy, Innovation and Science of the Junta de Andalucía (Regional Government of Andalusia), Sonia Rodríguez Torres. After the event, Juan Ignacio Burgaleta noted “the importance of collaboration between universities and the private sector for promoting R&D, in particular in key industries for the Spanish economy, such as renewable energy, and the need for help from public institutions to promote this collaboration”.

Gemasolar is the flagship project of the Torresol Energy company, a subsidiary that is 60%- and 40%-owned by SENER and MASDAR, respectively. It is an innovative concentrated solar power plant located in the province of Seville which, once built, in 2011, will deliver clean and safe energy to 25,000 homes and will cut emissions of CO2 by more than 30,000 tonnes. Gemasolar is the first commercial-scale project built in the world with central tower technology and heliostat fields with the molten salt storage system, a compound that is also used as a heat transfer liquid. This novel technology has great development potential in the future, as has been endorsed by different banking organisations such as the European Investment Bank (EIB), Banesto, the Banco Popular and the Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO), which have granted it credits for the value of 171 million Euros.