Azelio

Azelio is a Swedish engineering company who are developing concentrating solar power. Their technology is unusual for two reasons. Firstly, as far as I know, they are unique in that they are utilizing an aluminium alloy as a heat storage medium. Secondly, they plan to use a Stirling Engine rather than a steam turbine to actually generate the electricity. They are now working with the Moroccan solar agency, MASEN, to bring these technologies together and test them at MASEN’s Ouarzazate Solar Park. This is an excellent example of international cooperation, bringing together Swedish engineering expertise with Moroccan political commitment to developing their immense solar resource.

Azelio aim to commercialize this technology aimed in large part at mid scale off grid locations in the sunny tropics. This is where most of the 1.2 billion people without access to electricity live. For individual isolated households and hamlets solar photovoltaic panels plus batteries would be the appropriate technology. Azelio are aiming at the 0.5 to 20MW scale, so the village to town scale of infrastructure. These communities currently often have dirty and expensive diesel generators, with many people having no access to electricity at all. Conventional power stations and electricity grids never will reach them. Local solar plus storage is now a cheaper and more reliable alternative. Azelio is just one of a number of companies developing various forms of solar power which will further accelerate this aspect of humanity’s shift from ‘The Fossil Fuel Age’ to ‘The Solar Age’.

We all know the names of companies of ‘The Fossil Fuel Age’: BP, Shell, Exxon, Total, Gazprom, Ford, BMW and Volkswagen and of course, many more. How many of these companies will reinvent themselves as cleantech companies? My guess is that most of the biggest firms of The Solar Age’ will not be these, but rather the small innovative companies who are currently developing the best solar technologies. Perhaps Azelio will be a globally well known name in years to come. Their technology looks promising to me.

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