In 1946 at Meudon, Felix Trombe, Marc Foex and Charlotte Henry La Blanchetais conducted the first experimental programme using solar energy to create high temperatures. This 2kW solar heating substation uses a DCA projector mirror as a concentrator, thus reviving Lavoisier’s 18th century work. This new tool, designed for high-temperature chemistry and metallurgy, led to the construction of a 50 kW solar furnace at Mont-Louis, regarded by Felix Trombe as the model for a future industrial solar furnace. Built between 1962 and 1968, the Odeillo solar furnace, or to be exact, the complex of 12 solar furnaces, is now a CNRS laboratory, researching materials in extreme conditions and the conversion, storage and transport of energy. Recognised as a ‘major European infrastructure’, it is one of the world’s two largest solar furnaces. It became the model for the construction and usage of many solar furnaces worldwide.



12:00 - Departure for the THEMIS Solar Innovation Platform in Targasonne. Lunch and site visit.

In 1979, the Pyrénées-Orientales Departmental Council took out a lease with EDF for the construction of a solar power station using concentrated thermodynamic technology (1 tower and 201 heliostats), called Thémis. It started operating in 1983, but the experimental programme was halted three years later on financial grounds. In 2006, the Departmental Council decided to embark on an ambitious conversion programme of the site facilities. The programme had four main objectives: research and development in the field of new solar energy technologies, energy production from renewable sources, economic development and industry and science tourism. The main aim was thus to return Thémis to its original purpose of producing solar energy and to turn it into one of the first international multi-technology innovation platforms to focus on two areas: concentrated solar thermodynamic technology and solar photovoltaic power with solar tracking and/or concentration systems.