The Department of Energy’s Heliostat Consortium is offering up to $3 million in funding for projects that would lower the cost of heliostat technologies, a component of concentrating solar-thermal power systems.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory said Tuesday that a request for proposals was issued in December for the effort, soliciting projects that support any of the following six topical areas of research: advanced manufacturing; metrology and standards; components and controls; field deployment; techno-economic analysis; and resources, training and education.
The topical areas of research were outlined in a roadmap published by HelioCon in 2022, which was accompanied by an RFP for an initial batch of research projects that also sought to advance heliostat technology. That solicitation resulted in the award in 2023 of $3.5 million for seven projects.
The current solicitation will remain open until Feb. 16.
“The projects that result from this RFP will enable widespread deployment of concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) to decarbonize the electricity grid and energy systems,” HelioCon Executive Director and NREL Senior Researcher Guangdong Zhu said. He added that the resulting projects will help the U.S. achieve its 2050 decarbonization targets and expand the workforce required by the heliostat industry.
HelioCon is led by the DOE and NREL and is supported by partners at Sandia National Laboratories and the Australian Solar Thermal Research Institute.