Session: 05-11 Heliostat Consortium 1

Paper Number: 117125

117125 - An Overview on Heliocon: An International Heliostat Consortium to Advance Concentrating Solar-Thermal Technologies 

Heliostat-based concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) systems can offer immense potential to provide low-cost, dispatchable renewable thermal and electrical energy to help achieve 100% decarbonized energy infrastructure in the United States. Heliostats are a major determinant of both capital cost and performance of state-of-the-art commercial molten salt towers and Generation 3 CSP systems. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) launched the Heliostat Consortium (HelioCon), a five-year initiative to advance heliostat technologies. The HelioCon mission is threefold: (1) establish strategic core testing and modeling capabilities and infrastructure at national labs; (2) support heliostat technology development in relevant industries; and (3) serve as a central repository to integrate industry, academia, and other stakeholders for heliostat technology research, development, validation, and deployment.

In this presentation, we intend to provide a quick overview on HelioCon's roadmap report. The consortium identified gaps, performed detailed analysis to prioritize among three levels (“tiers”) of gaps, and recommended pathways to address those gaps. In order to achieve this, HelioCon first organized a workshop to gather industrial stakeholders, subject matter experts, and representatives from relevant sectors. HelioCon also conducted in-depth interviews with heliostat developers. After compiling the gap analysis results, a number of external reviewers were invited to review the results and their feedback was further incorporated into this roadmapping report.

We also intend to provide a quick overview on the list of selected projects through the first round of request for proposal process.

Presenting Author: Guangdong Zhu NREL

Presenting Author Biography: Dr. Guangdong Zhu has been a senior researcher since 2010 and, lately, the group manager of thermal energy systems, at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). At NREL, he has been leading research efforts related to solar collector optical characterization, linear Fresnel technology, and renewable energy hybridization. He is the executive director of the newly formed 5-year heliostat consortium co-led by NREL and Sandia National Labs, partnering with ASTRI. He is the associate editor of the ASME Journal of Solar Energy Engineering. He has served as technical/general program chair for ASME Energy Sustainability international conference in 2017 - 2020. He won NREL’s President’s award and Outstanding New Partnership Award in 2016. He has published over 40 peer-reviewed journal/conference papers and given numerous invited presentations at various research institutes. Dr. Zhu obtained his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of New Mexico in 2006.