Last week, the Department of Energy (DOE) said it will offer up to $50 million to test new solar technologies in an attempt to develop cost-competitive solar technologies. The program will help fund demonstration projects at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) and is designed to serve as a step between testing and full-scale commercialization of technologies.

The funds are intended to support projects that include concentrating solar power projects that demonstrate the ability to develop solar power that is cost-competitive with conventional electricity without subsidies. At this point the department has only announced the funding.

“We plan to announce the funding opportunity early next year,” said DOE spokesperson Tom Welch. “At that point, we’ll have instructions for the types of projects they want to fund.”

The DOE said it is funding the projects because of the lack of utility-scale solar projects that have come online within the last decade. It added that demonstrating that these technologies are cost-competitive in real world conditions may allow such projects greater access to financing.

The concentrating solar projects this funding is targeted toward will include concentrating solar power (CSP) and concentrating photovoltaics (CPV), though CSP could include technologies like solar thermal power, usually in the form of reflective troughs that heat a liquid in tubes or solar tower systems that reflect sunlight onto a central tower.

Both technologies superheat water, forming steam, which is used to power a steam turbine generator. The other technology, CPV generally uses high-efficiency photovoltaic cells and focuses more sunlight on them, generating more power than they would in flat form. The program is part of the DOE Solar Energy Technologies Program.

In a press release DOE Secretary Steven Chu said, "This funding will allow the Department to further test advanced and innovative solar energy technologies in real-world conditions, providing critical data for companies and communities looking to invest in large-scale solar projects."

The NNSS is part of the Solar Demonstration Zone, which was designated to test new solar technologies earlier this year.

The demonstration projects installed at the site are designed to be built on a large enough scale to showcase the technology and collect “useful operating and economic data” to help the successful technologies be deployed on the commercial scale, DOE said.

Pictured: Spain's Abengoa power plant, courtesy of Solucar.