In a symbolic, “jumping on board” sort of move, the U.S. Department of Energy has decided to allocate $60 million to research and development of solar thermal technology. In the short term, solar thermal shows more promise than solar photovoltaics for large scale production, and storage, of heat—and at a lower cost.

The money, which will be spent over the next five years, will be granted as part of several awards to industry leaders and universities working on increasing solar thermal efficiency and decreasing costs. While the $6o million over five years is rather paltry, to say the least, when stood against a history of oil and gas industry subsidies (anywhere from $15-35 billion each year), it is a start and will likely be appreciated by what is a young and fast growing industry.

The DOE will also be funding projects related to the storage of heat produced in the solar thermal process. This heat, which is can be converted to electricity, is much easier to store than electricity itself. Thus the stand-out advantage of large-scale solar thermal, that you can store enough heat to provide electricity to the power grid throughout the night. There are a few ideas for a storage medium, molten salt being the leader, and the development of these ideas is a primary reason for the DOE’s decision to spend the money.

Posted on June 4th in Solar News by Dan.