The project partners of industry and research (Kraftanlagen München GmbH, Stadtwerke Jülich GmbH, Solar-Institut Jülich der FH Aachen, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V.) have installed a dedicated research platform at half level of the 1,5 MWe solar thermal test and demonstration power plant Jülich (STJ).I In parallel to the operation of the power plant about 20% of the heliostats of STJ may be appointed to experiments needing highly concentrated solar radiation. They may be designed for a power of up to 500 kW. The laboratory of the research platform has an area of 80m², a height of 3m and has a 7m x 3m opening to the heliostat field.
Since health and safety regulations prohibit personnel on the platform during solar tests, experiments will be remotely controlled and supervised from the power plant control room. The research platform provides basic infrastructure, electricity, compressed air, water, ventilation, cooling and visual supervision cameras. A comprehensive data acquisition and storage system and a versatile selection of instrumentation and sensors are available to serve various future experiments.