Archived News Stories
News
Round 2 HelioCon RFP Now Open!
The Heliostat Consortium’s Round 2 request for proposals (RFP), which will provide $3 million in funding for awarded projects that support six topical areas of research focused on lowering costs and improving performance of heliostat technologies, is now open. Detailed information about the RFP and applying is available online. The RFP is open through Feb. 16, 2024.
Click here to view the RFP webinar recording.
Passcode: @@I24Esp
See RFP Round 2 Questions and Answers (PDF download 139kb)
News
Call for Submissions
The call for papers for the 2024 SPIE Optics + Photonics meeting is now online. The meeting is titled, “Advances in Solar Energy: Heliostat Systems Design, Implementation, and Operation II.” Abstracts are due February 7, 2024, with author notification April 29, 2024. Poster PDFs are due July 24 and manuscripts are due July 31, with the meeting taking place August 18-22, 2024, in San Diego, Ca. Read the submission guidelines online.
News
Heliosat Prize Semifinalists Announced
The U.S. Department of Energy announced nine semifinalists who will move on to the design phase of the American-Made Heliostat Prize in November. The nine selectees are: Heliogen; Idealab-SwRI CSP Innovators; KVA Technologies; Low-Profile Disc Tracker Genesis; Mark Ayres Engineering; Multiscale Systems; Quantum Optics Applied Research; Solar Dynamics; and Stellenergy. Each semifinalist receives $100,000 to develop concepts that will accelerate technology innovation of selected heliostat components. The nine semifinalists were selected from the concept phase of the challenge, in which competitors identified and developed promising technologies for one of the following components: heliostat structures, mirror facets, and wireless control systems. Read more.
News
HelioCon Annual Report 2023 Now Available
The Heliostat Consortium (HelioCon) 2023 Annual Report is now available online. The report provides detailed information on progress the HelioCon team has made since its founding, including expanding the number of partnerships with industry, research, education, and other institutions; increasing staff size; providing information to a growing audience through its web presence; and participating in national and international conferences with industry leaders. Read the full report online.
News
HelioCon’s Presence at 2023 SolarPACES Conference
The Heliostat Consortium provided an informational booth at the 2023 SolarPACES Conference in Sydney, Australia, October 10-13. During the conference, eight National Renewable Energy Laboratory researchers provided 18 presentations and two plenaries while participating in international task meetings and staffing the HelioCon booth. A photo gallery from the conference is available on the SolarPACES Conference website.
News
New Publication From HelioCon Researchers
A new publication by authors Tucker Farrell, Yue Cao, Frank Burkholder, Daniel Celvi, Christa Schreiber, and Guangdong Zhu has been published in the Journal of Solar Energy Engineering. The results in the article are intended to analyze environmental stressors and degradation trends among various historical and state-of-the-art solar reflectors. Read the full article.