The Solar World Congress 2019, an event of the International Solar Energy Society (ISES), held its 34th edition in Santiago, Chile. The congress was locally organized by SERC Chile with the support of the Corfo Solar Committee and the Ministry of Energy.

The decision to host this significant solar meeting in Chile was made in late 2017 in Abu Dhabi. Since then, SERC Chile and the Solar Committee, with the support of the University of Chile’s Energy Center, industry groups such as ACERA and ACESOL, and several universities, began organizing this event, which was a success in terms of participation.

The Solar World Congress (SWC2019) was inaugurated in Santiago on Monday, November 4^th, attended by the Minister of Energy, Juan Carlos Jobet, and the Minister of Science and Technology, Andrés Couve, as well as the executive director of the Solar Committee, Max Correa. The 432 scientists, academics, and industry representatives from 49 countries convened for four days at Centro Parque to analyze the key topics in solar energy: technologies and applications for solar heating and cooling; solar electricity; building integration; solar resource assessment; and energy storage methodologies. Collaborative spaces were also established to analyze training programs for technicians and professionals in specialized fields. A total of 311 papers were presented.

This is the first time the Solar World Congress has been held in South America, and Chile was chosen as the venue for its significant levels of radiation and the purity of the Atacama Desert sky. ISES President Dr. Dave Renné stated in his inaugural address that “Chile is compelling because it has a large solar market, the best solar resource in the world, as well as several solar projects underway and the opportunity to do many more.” Daniel Mugnier, director of the Solar Heating and Cooling Program (SHC), added that “this meeting is absolutely useful for Chile, due to the scientific and natural potential it has.” Virtually all of the national solar scientific capital is concentrated in SERC Chile, which brings together about 80 researchers from the country’s main universities who have been working since 2013 on reducing the barriers that still hinder the country’s solar development, which is key to the sustainability of our economy.

The Minister of Energy stated at the inauguration of SWC2019: ‐We are aware of the challenges we face as a country in developing renewable energies and are committed to energy innovation to advance cleaner energy.‑ Minister Couve noted that climate change necessitates an energy transformation and challenges the country to address the problem through science, adding that ‐we must increase research and integrate energy innovation as part of the entire knowledge development ecosystem.‑ Along the same lines, the executive director of the Corfo Solar Committee, Max Correa, emphasized that the success of renewable energies lies in multisectoral involvement, with significant participation from the public and private sectors, as well as academia.

The scientific chairman of the SWC, José Miguel Cardemil, who is also a researcher at SERC Chile and a Mechanical Engineering academic at the University of Chile, positively evaluated this version of the congress and affirmed that the European scientific community “has a very good impression of the level of research in the region.”

The Solar World Congress is organized by the International Solar Energy Society (ISES), with the support of the Solar Heating and Cooling Program (SHC), and is one of the oldest in the field. Its objective is to facilitate communication between the research community and industrial and political stakeholders; furthermore, it highlights the most distinguished scientific contributions, which are subsequently published in one of the sector's most prestigious journals, the Solar Energy Journal.