DOE Awards 
Solar R&D Grants

Thirteen awards worth $62 million were issued recently by the Department of Energy for development of concentrating solar power (CSP) systems. The five-year awards will be doled out to support improvements in CSP systems, components, and thermal energy storage systems that will help accelerate market readiness of this renewable energy source, DOE says. The department’s goal is to develop utility-scale, solar-thermal systems that also provide up to 18 hours of electricity storage, making them competitive with base-load coal-fired power plants. The grants fall into two areas: studies of CSP systems and studies of component feasibility. The power system studies will evaluate feasibility of complete systems and include development of field prototypes, DOE says. The grants in this area—each worth some $10 million—will go to Abengoa Solar, eSolar Inc., and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. The other 10 grants support R&D on components for base-load concentrating solar systems and are in the $2 million to $4 million range. Winners of these are General Atomics, HiTek Services, Infinia Corp., PPG Industries, Sener Engineering & Systems, SkyFuel, SunTrough Energy, Terrafore, the University of South Florida, and Wilson TurboPower.