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An experimental setup is presented which allows to experimentally determine the thermal heat losses from a heated solar cavity  receiver with an airwall. The setup is a ‘near-full-scale’ replica of a receiver, which ensures that the characteristic fluid dynamic numbers are in a range relevant for practical industrial applications. The executed tests show that – at ideal configuration – the airwall can reduce the overall thermal losses by 7±2%. The reduction of the convective losses amounts to 32±11%, which is in line with the known predictions from CFD simulations.