President of the European solar thermal association Estela until last year and of the Spanish Protermosolar since 2016, after serving eight years as the general secretary of this association, which brings together a hundred companies, Luis Crespo has always been linked to renewables and technology . It has done so through an endless number of projects and organizations that attest to its extraordinary capacity and its convictions. Now he retires, and passes the Protermosolar witness to Gonzalo Martín Barrera.

Luis Crespo leaves after intense work, having participated in the promotion and construction of 50 concentrated solar power plants in Spain and, as he himself says, «with the satisfaction that, after a decade in which they have demonstrated their reliability, the role has been understood, appreciated and taken into account with the new 5 GW planned for solar thermal energy in the planning of the future generation fleet of our country ».

“The future of electricity is exclusively renewable”, and that future, already turned into a present, has been possible in part thanks to it. In 1976, Luis Crespo began his solar thermal activities in the old CASA (today EADS) and in 1979 he arrived at the Almería Solar Platform, promoting in this center of world reference in solar thermal a long and brilliant career linked to renewables and technology.

Doctor in aeronautical engineering and a diploma in Sociology, Crespo has been general director at CTAER (Advanced Technological Center for Renewable Energies of Andalusia), deputy general director of the Center for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI) and director of the Institute of Renewable Energies (IER). He represented Spain in the Renewable Energy Committee of the 2nd Framework Program of the DG XII of the EU and participated in the evaluation of the European SPRINT and VAUE programs.

He has also participated in a large number of international technology and business committees as well as in working groups to define national and regional technological development programs. He has also been a founding member of several national and international associations and organizations in the energy, environmental and R&D fields. In addition, he has published countless articles, has made contributions to books, has participated in more than a hundred congresses and seminars and has taught master courses in the areas of energy, technology management and business management.

This long history has led Luis Crespo to become one of the most authoritative voices in the world in terms of solar thermal technology. For a few more months he will continue to preside over the Protermosolar association, basically in representation and advisory tasks, and whose management is now in the hands of Gonzalo Martín Barrera. A good relief, since Gonzalo Martín Barrera is a telecommunications engineer, master in renewable energy (ESI), MBA at Copenhagen Business School and doctor from the University of Seville. He has worked at Abengoa for almost eight years (2007-2016) and subsequently at Atlantica Yield, where I have been coordinating solar thermal projects in Spain and running a solar thermal plant in South Africa (residing there for the last two years). So, despite his youth, experience is not lacking to put himself at the forefront of the association.

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