DOE announced the Concentrating Solar Flux to Heat and Power funding opportunity, which will award up to $30 million for research, development, and demonstration projects that accelerate the large-scale development of CSP technology. CSP technologies offer unique value as a renewable energy resource that can readily deliver high-temperature heat for uses in the industrial sector and incorporate energy storage for on-demand solar power.

DOE anticipates making between six and 16 awards under this FOA ranging from $750,000 to $10 million. DOE encourages diverse teams to apply.

Topic Areas

• Topic Area 1: Scalable Concentrating Solar Collectors – This topic seeks innovations to lower costs and demonstrate reliability of solar collectors.
• Topic Area 2: Scalable Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (sCO2) Turbomachinery – This topic seeks proposals for scaled-up, advanced power cycles based on supercritical carbon dioxide that are more efficient than existing steam-based cycles.
• Topic Area 3: Scalable Concentrating Solar-thermal Receivers and Reactors – This topic seeks proposals for novel solar receivers and solar reactors that convert concentrated sunlight into usable thermal energy at high temperatures. This includes the development of 90% efficient particle receivers and enabling unique system concepts consistent with DOE’s Industrial Heat Shot, Hydrogen Shot, and Clean Fuels & Products Shot at a levelized cost of heat of $0.02 per kilowatt hour.