U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently announced that the Department of Energy will be funding a $50 million program to support demonstrations of solar energy technologies. The goal of the program is to enable scientists, technologists and corporations to test the productivity and efficiency of their solar power and photovoltaic technologies in the hopes of creating ‘cost competitive’ solar energy models for public consumption. The demonstrations of solar energy contemplated by this new initiatve are expected to be on the scale of a power utility.
The funded demonstrations are focused on two primary technologies: concentrating solar power technologies and concentrating photovoltaic technologies.
Concentrating solar power technologies use mirrors to reflect and concentrate sunlight onto receivers that collect solar energy and convert it to heat. The thermal energy generated by this process, in turn, can be used to generate electricity either via a steam turbine or by a heat engine driving a generator.
Concentrating photovoltaic technologies convert sunlight into electric energy. Electricity produced by photovoltaic energy are used in calculators, appliances, wrist watches, water pumps, and communications satellites.
This initiative is part of the Solar Energy Technologies Program. By financing the demonstration of certain projects, the intent is to make these projects ready for private sector investment.
