SENER

Winner 2011

The UKTI Award for Innovation

Founded in 1956, SENER is a private engineering and technology group employing over 5,000 people. Of all SENER’s engineering developments, it is their thermosolar plants that include a molten salt heat storage system that are most innovative. Salt is used as a storage mechanism to retain the heat a plant gets from solar energy. This means that when the sun goes down, the salt heat storage system has retained enough heat to keep the energy-generating turbines going.  This innovation can store up to 15 hours worth of heat.