This solar technology was a concentrator prototype initially designed by Fraser Symington in Ottawa, Canada.

Fraser Symington (left), a Canadian inventor, elaborated the principles of the Vesta, Helios and Apollo concentrators after several years of research. Keeping the conditions of poor countries in mind his idea was to design a concentrator both simple and powerful, able to be built and maintained locally almost anywhere in the world and still supply enough energy to boil water and cook quickly.

Based on these prototypes so simple they could not be patented, it was the motivation of the Oaxacan community along with a few Canadians in Mexico who developed the idea of spreading the technique freely. The Mexicans called these contraptions "Fuego Solar". It took 5 years to adapt the machine to the needs of the region. The effecient roasting of cocoa developed in 2004 with Helios, Mike Sacco and Graham Corbet (right) had the idea to import the cocoa to Canada and so created the Chocosol cooperativeworking with the Universidad de la Tierra of Oaxaca.

Members of the Canadian group, Lorin Symington (left), the grandson of Fraser Symington, and Eerik Wissenz, decided in 2007, to bring the technology to Cuba. Carlos Fernandez-Aballi coordinated the project in Cuba. A Vesta, was presented at the "International Conference on Renewable Energy" (CIER, 2007) in Havana.

After Cuba, Eerik came to Europe in hopes of diffusing still further the technology with a solar community. Eva Cantavenera offered him a basis to go on. Lorin came then to France and together they built a Vesta in Corsica.

Eerik (right) then went in search of other associations in the south of France to work with. At the Festiforum in Romans, he encountered members of the association "La Grange à Palabres" who were preparing a project to Mali. Lorin managed to join up with them and bring the technology to Bamako (see Tilé Tasuma).

During this time, Eerik worked in France to build a community of individuals and associations to diffuse the project in south of France and in Corsica with Julia Albertini. Toward this end the non-profit association "Projet du Feu Solaire" was created in Marseille in 2007 by six members. In Corsica, he also met Baptiste Lavigne and Nathan Guerin and together they built a Batant, small Vesta very usefull to train people.

In 2008, one oven, a concentrator and a dryer have been built in Mali and 8 Batant/Vesta in France, about ten persons learned the techniques, 2 constructions guides have been realized and the spip site was launch.

In 2009, Nils got a grant to build a machine in Burkina with SOS Energie to complete his studies at the IUT school fo Grenoble ; the french asso campaigned for the beginning of a construction with Gino and the GPAD at Madagascar ; Baptiste got a grant from Perpignan uni (South France) to realize measurements ; 4 ingeneers students did have a grant to build an Hélios and a Batant in Mali with the asso Frères Dogons and made new construction guide for Helios; new version of this site has been set up; in India, in one of the factories of V. K. Desai (Tinytech), Eerik and Eva developed the Prometheus 100 for collectives uses...