US Energy Dept Issues Letter Of Intent For Funding CSP Deployment

US New Initiative Aims To Bring Energy Efficient, RT Heat Pump By 2027

US department of energy (DOE) recently shared its intention to fund solar concentrator project with a potential funding of upto $30 million for research, development. 

The Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) made a fund opportunity announcement (FOA) in its notification for “Concentrating Solar Flux to Heat and Power.” The letter mentioned, “This project is estimated to be awarded up to $30 million for research, development, and demonstration projects that accelerate the large-scale development and deployment of concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) technology. The CSP technologies offer unique value as a renewable energy resource that can readily deliver high-temperature heat and incorporate energy storage for on-demand solar power. The SETO anticipates making between six and 16 awards under the intended FOA, each ranging from $750,000 to $10 million. SETO encourages diverse teams to apply.”

The letter stated, “The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) intends to issue, on behalf of the Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO), a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) titled “Concentrating Solar Flux to Heat and Power.” The intended FOA will support building a clean and equitable energy economy and addressing the climate crisis.”

The FOA plans to advance Biden Administration’s goals to achieve carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035 and to “deliver an equitable, clean energy future, and put the United States on a path to achieve net-zero emissions, economy-wide, by no later than 2050”1 to the benefit of all Americans. The US Department of Energy is committed to pushing the frontiers of science and engineering, catalyzing clean energy jobs through research, development, demonstration, and deployment, and ensuring environmental justice and inclusion of underserved communities.”

It added, “The research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) activities are to be funded under this FOA that can support the government-wide approach to the climate crisis by driving innovation that can lead to the deployment of clean energy technologies, which are critical for climate protection. For next-generation concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) plants (Generation 3 CSP or Gen3 CSP), SETO has set a target to lower the cost of electricity from baseload plants with greater than 12 hours of storage to $0.05 per kilowatt-hour by 2030.”

It further mentioned, “Across a range of solar industrial process heat (SIPH) concepts, SETO targets a levelized cost of heat (LCOH) of $0.02 per kilowatt-hour thermal to be directly competitive with natural gas heating. This LCOH includes cost for the collector system, receiver and thermal transport system, and thermal energy storage. SETO anticipates that the FOA will seek RD&D projects in three topic areas. Technologies in each area may support a variety of concentrating solar-thermal (CST) forms including CSP, SIPH, and high-temperature solar-thermal reactors. Each topic area focuses on scaling and maturing impactful technologies for specified CST subsystems.”