The University of Évora, through the Renewable Energies Chair, the Spanish Solar Energy Association (AEDES), and the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), jointly organized the 19th Iberian Congress and the 15th Ibero-American Congress of Solar Energy (CIES’24). This event took place at the Colégio do Espírito Santo from June 19 to 21, 2024, gathering around 130 participants in the most significant and historic meeting of the solar energy sector.
CIES’24 aimed to create a space for disseminating advances in solar energy and its applications in the Ibero-American environment. It highlighted topics such as solar thermal energy for domestic and industrial processes, photovoltaic energy, storage and management systems, presenting new advancements in energy capture, tracking, and transformation systems, as well as in the design of sustainable houses and neighborhoods and technologies for development and agriculture.
In this enriching meeting for the scientific and academic community, which featured over 100 presentations and posters, participants also had the opportunity to attend three practical workshops focused on energy storage and management and solar kitchens. Additionally, two European project meetings were held to promote collaboration between research centers, universities, and companies from the Ibero-American and Iberian Peninsula environments.
As Pedro Horta, President of CIES 2024 and Coordinating Researcher of the Chair of Renewable Energies at UÉ, noted in his welcome message to all participants, it is extremely important to host a topic in Évora that "is affirmed as one of the pillars of the energy system in Portugal: solar energy." He emphasized that in the journey that has extended for over four decades, starting in 1982, "with the vision of its founders in Portugal and Spain, Manuel Collares Pereira and Antonio Luque, extended to the Ibero-American solar community since 1987, we have witnessed the confirmation of threats and hopes. The economic and political impact of dependence on fossil fuels, made evident by the energy crisis of the 1970s, and the hope in the emergence of solar energy as a response, were then a vision of the future. The need for greater energy independence, made even more evident by the current war in Ukraine, and the confirmation of the competitiveness of solar technologies in large-scale electricity production, or the increase in installed capacity of solar systems for heat production in the industry, are today the confirmation of that vision. What was then the future is now, more and more, the reality," highlighting the current relevance of the topic debated during the days of CIES.
"Aware of the fundamental contribution of scientific and technological development, which has allowed, over these more than four decades, to find reliable, efficient, and competitive solutions for the increasingly important role of solar energy in changing the energy paradigm – the Energy Transition – CIES2024, gathered under the theme 'The Future is Today,' once again called upon the Ibero-American technical and scientific community to, with their experience and the result of their efforts, affirm solar energy as a present solution for the decarbonization of different sectors of human activity," emphasized Pedro Horta.
Thus, CIES2024 presented itself as an opportunity to showcase the latest advances in broad areas such as Solar Thermal Energy and Energy Storage; Photovoltaic Solar Energy and Energy Storage; Solar Energy for Power Generation and Industrial Processes; Solar Energy in the Built Environment and Communities; Solar Energy for Water and Agriculture; Hybridization and Integration in the Energy System, or the Energy Transition: Policy, Financing, Awareness.
