NEW YORK, Nov. 29, 2022 — Today, GlassPoint, the leader in decarbonizing industrial process heat, announced the appointment of Markus Balz as the company's new Chief Technology Officer. Balz is well-known in the industry for decades of solar innovation, winning nearly a dozen awards over his career for engineering performance and designing cutting-edge technology. At GlassPoint, Balz will lead the continued development of the company's solar steam technology, research and development processes, and engineering strategy to help industrial companies decarbonize and meet looming net-zero commitments with the only solution proven at scale.

Balz has spent over 20 years of his career at schlaich bergermann partner (sbp), the international structural engineering and consulting firm, leading the development of technologies for solar power generation. While there, he led advanced development in a range of solar innovations, including PV and CSP technologies as well as improvements to structural engineering and construction processes. Balz also oversaw the design, project management and prototyping of over 40 projects that span countries ranging from India and Australia to China and several European countries.

“Markus is an essential asset to our fast-growing team as we help industrial companies realize their net-zero goals.” said Rod MacGregor, CEO and founder of GlassPoint. “His expertise ranges from the technical aspects of designing solar technologies to the actual manufacturing and construction processes required to scale solutions internationally. His extensive experience managing successful projects around the world will help our growing customer base decarbonize a range of industries from mining to metals.”

With COP27 in full swing, companies, organizations and individuals are demanding change on an international scale. Balz joins the company as one-fifth of the world’s 2,000 largest public companies have committed to meeting net-zero goals. Time to address the economic costs of climate change is already running out, as experts predict global GDP could fall 37% by the end of the century due to rapid climate change.

“Decarbonizing industry as we know it is not easy,” says Balz, “but, as the only company providing solutions proven at scale, GlassPoint is in a unique position to propel industry progress towards expanding net-zero goals today. I’ve been impressed by the caliber of the team as well as the strong interest from large companies like Ma'aden seeking to deploy large installations of GlassPoint’s solar thermal solutions. I look forward to working closely with our world-class customers as we scale GlassPoint's solution internationally, helping decarbonize some of the most carbon-intensive industries like mining, construction and chemicals.”

Balz joins GlassPoint on the heels of several major accomplishments for the company, having recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Ma'aden to develop the world’s largest solar process heat plant, added former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former Alcoa COO Tomas Sigurdsson to their advisory board, and brought on solar finance expert Jacob Drejer as chief commercial officer. 

About GlassPoint

GlassPoint decarbonizes the production of materials essential to the energy transition and makes a substantial impact on combating climate change. The company builds, owns and operates large-scale solar steam facilities to reduce carbon emissions in hard-to-abate industries such as mining and metals, chemicals, construction materials, desalination and more. GlassPoint is the only solution proven at scale to reduce carbon emissions from industrial process heat and has built more than half of the solar steam capacity in the world.

To learn more about GlassPoint, visit: https://www.glasspoint.com/

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