Solar, Fossil Fuel Joined In Program

The Department of Energy is offering $20 million in financial assistance for technologies that integrate solar and fossil-fuel energy sources. The aid would support technologies that combine new “highly disruptive” concentrating solar power technologies with existing fossil-fuel—coal or natural gas—power-generating systems that produce electricity. Through a system of mirrors or lenses, concentrating solar power systems direct sunlight to heat a medium and drive a heat engine, usually a steam turbine. DOE’s assistance would help fund R&D and deployment of hybrid technologies that combine thermal or chemical energy from a concentrating solar installation with similar thermal energy from an existing fossil-fuel plant and, using both systems, generate electricity. The department’s goal is to fund two to four of these projects with participants—industry, universities, or national laboratories—paying 75% of the cost. DOE estimates that use of this technology could add 11 to 21 gigawatts—the equivalent of 11 to 21 nuclear power plants—to existing fossil-fuel power-generating stations.