Management

Joachim Maass (CEO)

Joachim earned two engineering degrees: Electrical engineering / data science and telecommunications, from the Universities of Hamburg / Germany and Portsmouth / UK as well as business studies / corporate MBA, from the Universities of Hagen / Germany and DUKE University in NC / USA.

After having worked in the telemetric field for Heusch-Boesefeld he joined Siemens AG as software development engineer and gained fast promotion to positions as Product Manager Inovative Products and as entrepreneur of an internal venture. When Siemens Venture Capital GmbH (SVC) was founded in 1999 he was asked to take over the business unit Internal Ventures where he and his team managed and financed several technology spin offs in the USA and in Germany.

He left SVC for a pan-European incubator, where he managed several business units on a European scale followed by his own consulting business based in the high tech industry for marketing and financing. In 2009 he co-founded Solar Tower Systems and is the company’s CEO.

Dr. Philipp Schramek (CTO)

Philipp graduated with a master degree in Physics at the Ludwig-Maximilian-University, Munich, Germany and earned a Ph.D. of Engineering and MBA from the Technical University Munich, Germany.

For more than 12 years he has been working in the field of Concentrating Solar Power technologies, especially on heliostat field designs for Solar Towers. He co-operated for many years with the Solar Group at the University of Sydney and with the Australian Solar Heat & Power company. He designed the heliostat field for the Australian CSIRO and was for two years Research Director, Optics of the US-based Ausra, Inc. which he left early 2009 to return to Europe. Philipp was responsible for the design of heliostat fields of three of the handful of solar tower projects realized worldwide over the last 5 years. The latest heliostat field he designed is the 18,000m2 heliostat field for the Solar Tower in Jülich, Germany.

Philipp's innovative and pragmatic thinking is documented in several scientific publications, patents and is visible in the three realized heliostat fields. He has gained international recognition from the solar community for his original approach to the design of solar tower systems and their heliostat fields. Philipp is responsible for Product Development and Consulting Services and is the company's CTO.

Guy Gaines (COO)

Guy attended the University of Minnesota, Duluth and served as an enlisted member of the United Stated Nuclear Naval Program before embarking on a career in Project Management and Controls.

After working with some of the best and most prestigious Engineering, Procurement and Construction firms in the world such as Bechtel, DOW Chemical and Calpine Corporation on projects around the world, including North America, Asia and Europe, in 2006 he jointly founded the US firm Demonstrated Performance Inc., which specializes in Capital Project Management and has developed the Infinitrac software platform.

A diverse background that includes Transportation, Petro-Chemical, Nuclear, Energy, Renewables and High Technology projects with responsibilities that have progressed from craft labor through Project Controls and Project Management into Executive Management gives Guy a unique perspective and vision. He has a firm grasp on Scientific, Technical and Production aspects and has a strong ability to negotiate and build relationships. Guy is responsible for Production and Project execution covering installation and maintenance and is the company’s COO

Dr. Antoine Bittar (CSO)

He has worked in solar research, development and commercialization since 1980, and gained substantial, internationally recognized expertise in solar resource assessment, solar energy conversion systems, both solar photovoltaic and solar thermal, for heat and electricity production, especially the more recent CSP technologies such as parabolic troughs, linear Fresnel and central tower systems.

Over the past two years, Tony was VP of Research and Development at Ausra Inc. As a member of that company’s leadership group he has contributed to its efforts to translate linear Fresnel technology into a world leading commercial product. Tony has a broad background in solar energy, solid state physics, material science, thin film optics and spectroscopy as applied to concentrated solar power (CSP).

Tony gained his graduate degrees in Physics and material science in New Zealand and his PhD in France. He has published and co-authored over 150 refereed publications in international journals. Tony is the company´s Chief Science Officer (CSO).

Santanu Sarkar (Director Solar Tower India Pvt Ltd.)

Mr Santanu Sarkar is an MBA (Finance) from University of Calcutta, India and BE (Electrical) from Jadavpur University, India and has 23 years of qualitative experience in Energy and Power Generation in the field of EPC of Power Project. He has vast experience of Design Engineering, Contract Commercial and Project Finance, Statutory clearances and activities for setting up of Power Projects from Concept to commissioning.

Santanu had served M/s Sunborne Energy as Senior Vice President, for heading the CSP division. He worked extensively in activities of Business Development, Solar Policy Framing, Design Engineering, Statutory Clearances, Project Development, Project Finance and Supply Chain Management. He had driven the cost optimization, Technology Collaboration and Indigenization Solar activities, to achieve stringent Targets of Indian CSP projects. He was involved with Solar R&D projects by Government of India.

He also served leading EPC and Power Project Developer companies of India. He headed EPC team of M/s Indiabulls Power Limited as Vice President (EPC) and previously worked for M/s Reliance Energy, M/s CESC Limited to build  projects of  5000 MW power in totality. He is an Auditor and Technical Expert of Power Plant Process of TUV-SUD, Germany for conducting ISO audits.

He is Director of Solar Tower India Pvt Limited 

>>> contact