Innovations on Concentrated Solar Thermal Power
Solar Thermal World’s published article on CSP innovations and companies in which the DOE is investing portrays an unusually positive and bright future for the Solar Thermal Industry. Most articles one reads nowadays on Solar Thermal would make one think that the future seems to be farther away than it really is, but this article describes reality as it is. In this text, it explained how the DOE has invested in six research projects to reduce costs and enhance the technology of concentrating solar collectors. This initiative was named COLLECTS and is part of the department’s SUNSHOT. COLLECTS was created with a 9 million dollar budget to focus on solar thermal collectors and reflectors, which are the most expensive part of this type of projects.
Through the COLLECTS initiative, the department is funding several companies like Sunvapor, Giant Leap Technologies, Agira, and Hyperlight Energy, all which are presenting exciting proposals on technology improvements and cost reductions possible for CSPs. COLLECTS is an important initiative for the DOE because 50% of the primary energy used by US manufacturers and 25% of the total GHG emissions can be attributed to fuel used for process heat, which could possibly be substituted with innovations in solar thermal. (1).
The projects and companies being funded are not fully operational in the market…
