United States Department of Energy Grants for Solar Electricity

By Green Car Congress on 05/08/2010 – 4:05 am PDT
The US Department of Energy has selected 13 projects for investment of up to $62 million over five years to research, develop, and demonstrate Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems capable of providing low-cost electrical power.

CSP technologies concentrate the sun’s energy and capture that energy as heat, which then drives an engine or turbine to produce electrical power. CSP plants can include low-cost energy storage, allowing them to provide electricity even when the sun is not shining.The selected projects will seek to improve component and system designs to extend operation to an average of about 18 hours per day, a level of production that would make it possible for these plants to displace traditional coal-burning power plants. The thirteen award selections announced today fall into two areas:

Concentrating Solar Power Systems Studies. Projects awarded under this category will evaluate the feasibility of a complete CSP baseload system and support development of prototype systems for field testing. These selections include:

Abengoa Solar, Inc. – Lakewood, CO – up to $10.6 million. Abengoa Solar will develop a new power tower technology that captures heat in a high-temperature receiver at the top of an elevated tower. The system will focus the sun’s rays to the tower using a 360-degree, surround reflector field on the ground and collect the heat in a salt fluid, which is used to make steam and drive a turbine. The system will also incorporate a thermal storage system to allow it to operate for a period when the sun isn’t shining. The ability to operate at higher temperatures will translate into more energy produced with the same size power plant. Abengoa is currently the only company with a full-scale, operational power tower, and thus proving this technology could help it reach commercial maturity.

eSolar, Inc. – Pasadena, CA – up to $10.8 million. eSolar will design, build, and test a CSP power plant system with fundamentally new components. Instead of one central tower and receiver, the plant will employ multiple, modular towers. Using reflective mirrors, the sun’s radiation will heat a liquid salt within each receiver. A specialized molten salt transport system will then move the high-temperature fluid to a molten-salt steam generator that produces electricity. The system will also feature a thermal storage system. Eventually, this technology could deliver lower-cost solar energy at a utility scale.

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne – Canoga Park, CA – up to $10.2 million. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne will build on and advance the current solar power tower plant design