Walter Tosto SpA is participating in the construction of the Nextower prototypes. This research project aims at introducing innovative materials in order to increase the performance of concentrated solar power (CSP) with atmospheric air towers.

The project, coordinated by ENEA (National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development), recently obtained the international award “CEN-CENELEC Standards + Innovation Award 2020 and involves 20 partners between leading companies and research institutions in Europe.

On a national level, in addition to ENEA and Walter Tosto SpA, consortium CALEF, Certimac, University of Rome La Sapienza and Polytechnic of Turin are participating together with the foreign partners The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of The University Of Oxford (United Kingdom), KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Sandvik Materials Technology (Sweden), EngiCer (Switzerland), Siltronix (France), Liqtech (Germany), beWarrant (Belgium), CIEMAT, ICAMCYL, R2M and the standardization body UNE (Spain).

The project consist in the construction of two prototypes: SOLEAD#1 at the Plataforma Solar De Almeria (PSA) of CIEMAT, in Spain and SOLEAD#2 at the ENEA Center in Brasimone (Bologna), on the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. The completion of the works has been scheduled for the end of June 2021.