By manipulating the shape of heliostats in real time, the optical efficiency of solar fields for tower CSP can be significantly increased, according to a paper presented at the New Mexico SolarPACES Conference: Heliostat with Automatic Shape Adjustment for High Concentration Throughout the Day, presented
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) announced the Solar-thermal Fuels and Thermal Energy Storage Via Concentrated Solar-thermal Energy funding opportunity, which will award $30 million for projects to produce fuels via renewable energy resources and improve thermal energy storage technologies.
Synhelion’s solar receiver achieves a temperature of 1,500°C and higher. That’s unprecedented. Even the Gen3 particle-based solar receiver being pilot-scale tested now at Sandia – and the DLR CentRec receiver licensed to Heliogen – operate at the (relatively!) lower temperature of 1,000°C. One of Synhelion’s
Press Release: Aug 3 2023 Synhelion and Cemex announced today a significant milestone in their joint effort to develop fully solar-driven cement production: the scaling of their technology to industrially-viable levels. This includes the continuous production of clinker, the most energy-intensive part of cement manufacturing,
Tour the pilot-scale sodium receiver and falling curtain particle receiver in Australia During the 29th SolarPACES Conference, a day trip from Sydney will take you on a Technical Tour of the CSIRO National Solar Energy Centre at Newcastle, where the working of two gen-3 receivers
[Ed: The storage material is by Seramic Materials; developed by Nicolas Calvet, Founder and Chair of the Masdar Institute Solar Platform, the first CSP and thermal energy storage research facility in the UAE (United Arab Emirates)] Source: PV Magazine Serbia-based Storenergy has developed a thermal
Ten years ago, GlassPoint CEO Rod MacGregor bucked the typical business plan for solar developers, both PV and CSP (How CSP works): Sign an electricity contract with an electric utility to sell your solar power by the kilowatt-hour for 25 years and try to get
Abstract: CSP-biomass hybrid power plants are promising options for displacing electricity from flexible fossil systems and increasing the share of dispatchable renewable energy in power grids. However, they are investment-intensive technologies whose competitiveness in electricity markets is still uncertain. This paper explores for the first
Press Release Industrial Solar and its local partner Turbo Control have signed an agreement to develop a Fresnel Collector system at Unilever’s Factory located in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Industrial Solar conducted an extensive engineering study for Unilever Mexico in late 2022. After this study, seeing the
The project, which will be carried out by researchers from Fraunhofer Chile with support from the Crea y Valida Fund of the government agency CORFO, proposes to develop and validate a solar thermal concentration system, capable of reaching and maintaining temperatures that allow the smelting
Solar hydrogen is a component of the thermochemical solar fuels that Synhelion is developing commercially, such as aviation fuel The solar thermal green hydrogen technology beginning to be commercialized by Synhelion has now received a nod from the US DOE with funding announced today: Press
40 Projects Across 21 States Will Advance Technologies to Decarbonize American Industry and Help Create Good-Paying Jobs WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $135 million for 40 projects that will reduce carbon pollution from the industrial sector and move the nation
Abstract: New analysis is presented identifying strong potential for Concentrating Solar Thermal technology (CST) to be a cost-effective contributor to future sources of net zero-emissions, high temperature industrial process heat relative to other emerging options. Nevertheless, significant further development of the technology is needed to
Abstract: Process heating is the activity with the most energy consumption in the industrial sector. Solar heating (SH) systems are a promising alternative to provide renewable thermal energy to industrial processes. However, factors such as high investment costs and area limitations in industrial facilities hinder
Goal: ensure the quartz window never exceeds 300°C, despite solar receiver temperatures above 1500°C – keeping thermal efficiency over 50%
“Today, Treasury and IRS, in partnership with DOE, announced the intent to release approximately $4 billion in a first round of tax credits for projects that expand U.S. supply chains for clean energy technologies and critical materials for clean energy technology production, and for projects
SolarSteam was recently picked by Foresight Canada as one of the country’s most investable clean tech companies. The start-up uses concentrating solar thermal to produce hot water and steam for use by industrial and institutional clients that need to meet an initial 20% to 30%
Next year Solar Dynamics will demo a pilot project with solar thermal energy to dry biosolids to extract nitrogen to make fertilizer pellets
Read the full paper comparing Germany’s green industrial heat options at Science Direct Abstract This paper is based on a position paper of the German Industry Association Concentrated Solar Power e.V. to the German government and discusses options on how to decarbonize the heat demand
The US DOE announces new 2023 solar technologies funding for early stage CSP/CST innovations
Solar PV and CSP are the best suited renewables to drive MENA region synthetic fuel production potential at low cost
The solar furnace in Parkent, Uzbekistan will be used to recycle 50 tons of steel by the Swiss firm, Panatère in 2023
In Denmark, financing green district heat was not left to the whims of the market.
An assessment of the cost/benefit of each green heat technology is timely, as countries that were most heavily dependent on Russian gas must rapidly decarbonize heavy industry as gas supplies dwindle from over 40% to under 10% and rise in price from 20 to 140
“Our heliostat software works like human bodies work. We have eyes and eyes allow us to put our fingers in a very exact place with feedback.”
DOE Announces $24 Million Awards; $10.7 Million for Gen-3 CSP and $13.2 to Advance Concentrated Solar-Thermal Technologies for Industrial Decarbonization DOE also Releases Strategic Roadmap to Enhance Ability to Harness Solar Power, Lower Costs for Mirrors used in Concentrating Solar Power Plants WASHINGTON, D.C. — The
Press Release OAKLAND, Calif. – July 13, 2022 – TITAN Cement Group joins decarbonization and electrification investment leaders, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Energy Impact Partners, in supporting Rondo Energy (“Rondo”) through its recent Series A financing round for the scale-up of its innovative “heat battery” technology,
[Ed: Their GlassPoint technology won the SolarPACES Technology Innovation Awardin 2016] From CSPFocus Saudi Arabia has signed an MOU with the California-based firm GlassPoint to build the world’s biggest solar thermal steam producing plant there. The facility will generate steam directly to make aluminum. Aluminum
Replacing flexible gas before baseload coal is the EU’s new focus. This makes the case for the dispatchable solar; CSP much stronger.
Thermal energy storage is cheap but it’s expensive turning heat back into electricity. Rondo Energy instead proposes to sell the heat.
(From Utility Dive) Dive Brief: To help commercialize emerging energy storage that can power the grid for at least 10 hours, the Department of Energy has launched a $505 million four-year initiative. It aims to lower barriers to grid energy storage, and support small-scale, behind-the-meter
By the middle of the 21st century the global energy system will hopefully be very different, with clean energy, clean fuels and clean heat supporting a highly decarbonized future. It will require so many changes in how we have done these things so far, that
IEA provides 10-Point Plan to European Union for reducing reliance on Russian supplies by over a third while supporting European Green Deal, with emergency options to go further Download image Do not sign any new gas supply contracts with Russia. [Impact: Enables greater diversification of
Yet another use for industrial solar heat – drying wastewater sludge – attracts study at six-minute solar collector maker Absolicon
Direct solar heat – Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) – is a potential renewable resource for replacing heat from burning fossil fuels for industries like mining, as its technologies generate heat directly from sunlight at anywhere from 150°C to 1500°C. But lack of information on both
Turbochargers were first used to amplify fossil fuel efficiency. Now they could turbocharge solar energy for 100% renewable industrial heat
DOE workshops educate regulators on long duration energy storage (LDES) A Federal energy project funded through the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity has initiated workshops designed to help state utility regulators determine best practices in policies to enable carbon-free energy storage technologies
HelioHeat’s 1,000°C heat at just 1 Cent/kWh potentially ends the use of fossil energy for the production of steel, cement, food and chemicals
Synhelion will produce concentrated solar heat at 1500°C for the cement plant and receive highly concentrated CO2 to produce synthetic fuels
Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology is being successfully applied to treat wastewater effectively and do so while driving down costs and lower carbon emissions. Source: Rioglass Wastewater treatment is an increasingly complex and resource intensive process. Many operators of wastewater processing plants have been looking
Solatom’s Fresnel solar module is shipped ready to go and connected onsite as a turn-key design to generate steam or high pressure hot water
Commercializing alumina refining using solar heat Approximately 27% of Australia’s industrial carbon emissions come from alumina refineries, in which fossil fuels are burned to heat the processes. But concentrated solar thermal (CST) could provide up to half of the heat needed. Australian researchers have for
Engineers generally tend to be solutions-oriented, and engineers in Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) are no different. A history of making things better than they were is why we now have advanced technologies. As Hal Harvey, founder of Energy Innovation told the NYT opinion columnist Tom
Source: Power-Technology Saudi Arabia has appointed the UK-based Solar Water PLC to build the first ‘carbon-neutral’ desalination plant in the city of Neom. The desalination plant will use concentrated solar power to heat a steel dome that boils the seawater. Works on the desalination plant
HELIOVIS has been running a demo plant in Spain for two years demonstrating their novel low-cost blow-up plastic tube solar collector for CSP. The small startup is fighting hard to get the industry-scale financial backing needed to introduce the technology and to make commercial sales.
Source: Port Technology News The Port of Antwerp has inaugurated the first Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) in Europe as part of its efforts to make its operations more environmentally friendly. [Actually, there are many such projects in Europe: for example the many cities with solar
“But even though the costs, the lifetime returns, and the speedy pay-back proved so competitive, during the three year study, Cuadros found that small and medium businesses were loathe to actually purchase and own novel technology.” Only the deep pockets of the oil industry or
Iron, nickel, alumina and copper mining processes are among the industrial processes that require heat at between 700°C and 1000°C. The advanced concentrated solar thermal (CST)reactors being developed by researchers globally can attain temperatures this high (and higher, up to 1500°C). But CEOs in mining
A preliminary study of the average cost of a novel process for producing solar hydrogen in several locations in Australia finds it could come close to the US DOE renewable hydrogen target of $3 per kilogram. The way that hydrogen is reformed from natural gas
Charcoal might seem like a very low tech product, but lithium batteries, water filtration and super-capacitors are among its high tech end uses, and the requirements for these different purposes are actually very exacting. Solar researchers in Mexico are investigating the various temperatures and the
Thermal energy stored in steel slag could replace fossil fuels used for heat in steel production
Renewable energy researchers have been looking into how to cut CO2 emissions from processing industrial minerals like cement and lime, as these are responsible for a high share of the global greenhouse gas emissions. For every 10 tons of cement we produce, we release 9
Instead of running air conditioners on fossil-fueled electricity, University of Bergamo researchers Guiseppe Franchini and Antonio Perdichizzi propose an alternative cooling technology; using a thermal form of solar energy to provide solar district cooling in the Saudi Kingdom. Their study of the economics of solar
GlassPoint just signed an agreement with a second oil company operating in Oman to facilitate oil production by the use of 2 GWth solar-generated steam replacing fossil fuel-generated steam.
A New Paper Describes a Solar Thermal Air Capture of Carbon Dioxide with Amino Acids Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) will play a key role in a decarbonized economy because it can produce heat without adding any carbon emissions. Though for centuries we’ve produced heat for
The 1,021 MWth solar thermal EOR project will generate 6,000 tons of solar steam each day, one gigawatt of solar thermal energy From Glasspoint: Fremont, California, February 12th, 2018 – Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), the leading exploration and production company in the Sultanate of Oman, and
Mintek pyrometallurgy engineer Lina Hockaday is trying a highly focused solar reactor to replace the fossil energy used as part of the steelmaking process
If you could capture the sun, this gigantic thermal energy storage tank is what that looks like
Latest in Development: 2023 Vast Solar 30 MW CST (solar fuels production) Latest Online: 2016 Sundrop Farms 36 MW CST: SolarPACES-NREL database: All plant details on this CSP project The Sundrop project uses tower CSP for onsite greenhouse agricultural production since 2016. CSP for electricity
Operating Agent: Tobias Hirsch, DLR, Germany (tobias.hirsch@dlr.de) Subtasks and Working Groups Main activities are carried out in a joint task between SolarPACES and IEA Solar Heating & Cooling Program (SHC). The joint task has been started in April 2020 with task leaders Andreas Häberle on
SolarPACES (Solar Power and Chemical Energy Systems) SolarPACES.org is the international network of researchers in concentrating solar power (CSP) refining a form of solar power that is dispatchable on demand because it includes thermal energy storage. The organization began in 1977 and today is increasingly
