The American-Made Heliostat Prize is a 3-contest challenge designed to accelerate technology innovation of selected heliostat components.
New energy technologies are reshaping the national and global energy landscape. Increased deployment of solar technology will require flexible and dispatchable generation and energy storage technologies, like concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) with thermal energy storage, to ensure reliability of the grid. Achieving these targets will depend heavily on reducing the cost of heliostats – which track the sun and reflect light, concentrating it on a receiver – to $50/m2, while improving technical performance, from an existing baseline of approximately $96-$127/m2. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) is seeking to reduce the cost of heliostats, in this prize, by specifically focusing on reducing the cost, or validating the performance of novel components. This prize is designed to accelerate heliostat component technology innovation through the design, development, demonstration, and eventual commercialization of selected heliostat components.
Deadline for Concepts: Aug. 31, 2023
In keeping with the goal of growing a community of innovators, competitors are encouraged to form diverse, multidisciplinary teams while developing their concept. The HeroX platform provides a space where parties interested in collaboration can post information about themselves and learn about others who are also interested in competing in this contest.
Concept Contest Eligibility
• Individuals, teams of individuals, private entities, and nonfederal government entities (such as states, counties, tribes, municipalities, and academic institutions) are eligible to compete in the Concept contest.
• A single competitor or team may submit a maximum of two submissions. If a competitor is listed as a team member of a submission which they are not leading, this shall count as one of their two allowed submissions. If more than two submissions are received from a single competitor or team, only the two most recently submitted submissions will be considered.
