Giovanni Francia

Giovanni Francia was an Italian mathematician and engineer, born in Turin in 1911 and died in 1980, regarded as the father of solar thermoelectric power plants. He earned a degree in mathematics in 1935 and moved to Genoa in 1938 to teach at the university and work as a consultant, turning his attention to solar energy from the 1960s onward. In 1963 he built a solar plant capable of producing steam above 550 degrees Celsius, and in 1968 he completed the plant at Sant'Ilario near Genoa that is credited as the world's first solar power tower, using a field of mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a central elevated receiver in the same architecture later adopted by power tower plants worldwide. He continued developing solar technologies until his death, and his point-focus tower concept inspired the concentrating solar power industry that followed.