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Heliogen Institutional Ownership still at an all time high. https://fintel.io/so/us/hlgn
HELIOGEN Chapter 2
6 days ago, Updated: 5 days ago
https://opportunistic2022.wixsite.com/opportunisticequityb/post/heliogen-chapter-2
In this chapter, I”m just going through a very brief company milestones. Everything compressed for less than 5 minutes of reading.
The company's objective is to build a profitable and scalable business that contributes to achieving global net-zero emissions by decarbonizing heavy industry. The company chose to concentrate on the heavy industry because its the biggest energy consumption sector in the world and extremely underserved by renewable energy. The company's technologies will replace industrial fossil fuels with focused sunlight through proprietary technologies
A quick review the company information:
The company's technology concentrates sunlight to extremely high temperatures, using an AI-based control system that moves around a field of small mirrors to the effect of a self-adjusting magnifying glass at a very large scale. They utilize that to create 100% carbon-free solar thermal energy at temperatures up to 1,000 degrees Celsius, which can be used to make heat, steam, electric power, or green hydrogen. The end products include HelioHeat, HelioPower, and HelioFuel.
Company Commercial Contracts/Progress:
1.Dimensional Energy Collaboration
The company has recently signed a non-binding LOI with Dimensional Energy to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at its Lancaster, California demonstration facility. Heliogen will produce green hydrogen for Dimensional Energy’s Reactor platform using thermal energy in the shape of high-temperature steam and air.
The company first step is to construct a pipeline of three million barrels of fuel over the next decade. Dimensional Energy has also entered into a commercial agreement to provide United Airlines with 300 million gallons of SAF over 20 years.
2.Partnership: City of Lancaster for Green Hydrogen Production
On November 7, 2022, HLGN enter MOU to Construct a new commercial facility to produce up to 1,500 metric tons of hydrogen annually using Heliogen technology. This facility is expected to produce hydrogen that can be sold to industrial customers in Lancaster and around Los Angeles. They are also expected to take an additional equity partners to support the cost of construction.
Recent Commercial Progress:
- Signed MOU with the City of Lancaster, California to build a new commercial hydrogen production facility using Heliogen technology.
- Selected for a $4.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to accelerate the deployment and full-scale development of a solar thermal calciner to decarbonize cement production.
- Successfully completed initial field testing of ChariotAV, Heliogen’s autonomous heliostat cleaning vehicle.
- Began final qualification for main production lines at Heliogen’s automated, high-volume manufacturing facility
Heliogen's ChariotAV video: https://youtu.be/WtVmEo3Tw9k
Thomson Reuters (Analyst Research Report).
Forecasted Growth: Date 12/6/2022
Heliogen Institutional Ownership at a new all-time high. https://fintel.io/so/us/hlgn
At SolarPACES 2022, Heliogen talks up Solar Heat Efficiency for Mines
Posted onOctober 4, 2022AuthorSusan Kraemer
https://www.solarpaces.org/at-solarpaces-2022-heliogen-talks-up-efficiency-of-solar-heat-for-mining/
“What we’re doing with software on our heliostats is the way our human body works too. We don’t have stiffness in our arm but we have eyes and eyes allow us to put our fingers in a very exact place with feedback.” View from behind the receiver tower over the solar field of automated heliostats IMAGE@Heliogen
The entire opening plenary of this year’s SolarPACES Conference focused on delivering solar heat directly to decarbonize industry. With 30% of global emissions emitted by fossil fuels to heat industrial processes; this need is well understood, but the emergency is now exacerbated by Europe’s very immediate need to replace gas from Russia.
One of these plenary speakers, Heliogen Founder Bill Gross, commented afterwards.
“That’s why we had that whole panel on Industrial decarbonization,” he told me. “We talked a lot at SolarPaces this year about how heat is the big market for concentrated solar thermal now. Heavy industry needs heat 24/7 at between 150 °C and 1000 °C and concentrated solar thermal can deliver that entire temperature range, and do so around the clock. So industry doesn’t so much need PV to decarbonize; it needs much more CSP – CST.”
He noted that the more accurate term would be CST because the solar product is not power, but heat. Concentrated solar power (CSP) and concentrated solar thermal (CST) concentrate sunlight to generate heat that is then stored thermally. CSP then generates electricity from the solar heat in the same kind of thermal power block as used by coal or nuclear plants.
But CST simply delivers solar heat directly.
This new focus marks a galvanizing moment for a heat-based solar technology, which as CSP has struggled for the grid value of its dispatchable generation to be appreciated by utilities, which remain satisfied with batteries to back up the intermittency of PV and wind.
“Utilities buy power at the lowest price possible; they are the lowest cost buyer, then mark it up to customers,” Gross noted, explaining the advantage of selling solar heat directly. “Utilities only need four hours of storage, but industry needs it 24 hours, and CST delivers that. So if you want to go after industry, that’s buying gas from the utility, you want to help them avoid that double markup.”
Plenary speakers also covered the policy now needed to jump start this new use of a solar technology that is ideally suited for decarbonizing industry heat use, but is not yet widely known. As a serial entrepreneur in climate tech with IdeaLab and CarbonCapture under his belt already, Gross focused more on what his latest company is already forging ahead with.
The mining industry opportunity
In 2021, Heliogen was selected by Rio Tinto to explore supplying direct solar heat 24/7 for their boron mine in California, with plans ultimately to supply its mines in Australia. Of all the heavy industries, mining has the biggest demand for thermal energy.
“A typical mining site might use 100 MW of electricity but it uses a gigawatt of heat; 10 or 20 times more heat than electricity,” said Gross.
“Mining is growing so fast because of the demand for materials for renewables, like lithium, cobalt, nickel, steel and aluminum, especially in Australia, there’s so much demand for materials right now.”
Recalling Solar Reserve’s early attempts with Australian mines, he noted: “Times have changed, but also they weren’t selling the heat. They were just selling electricity. Both Rio Tinto, the mining company, and Woodside Energy, the natural gas company, want far more heat. And they want to make hydrogen too which also runs 24/7.”
Heliogen’s cleaning robot cleans the rows of heliostats in 3 steps, first with ambient air, then dry dusted with a soft brush, and only if the camera detects dirt on the surface, such as bird droppings, then with water. IMAGE@Heliogen
The efficiency advantage of solar heat
Generating just heat from solar takes less land than generating electricity, whether using CSP or PV.
“Solar heat is actually three times more efficient than PV,” Gross pointed out. “If you have 1,000 watts per square meter striking a PV panel, you only get 200 watts of electricity. If you have 1,000 watts per square meter striking one of our mirrors, you get 600 watts of thermal energy; three times more efficient. People really appreciate the fact that solar thermal energy is more efficient than electricity.”
The efficiency of solar heat means that CST plants are also much more compact than CSP plants. To deliver 100 MWth of heat, you’d use 8 Heliogen modules, requiring less than a square kilometer (0.87 sq km). By comparison, a 100 MWe CSP plant takes 7 or 8 square kilometers of land.
Heliogen is modular, depending on the temperature required. One unit takes only 109,265 square meters of land and produces 12.5 MWth of saturated steam at up to 311 °C. Heliogen has demonstrated the ability to concentrate sunlight to temperatures exceeding 1000 °C, and is currently working on integrating these high temperatures into industrial processes.
“Mineral mining is our big opportunity,” he said. “We’re talking to a steel plant in Morocco that’s out in the desert and a steel plant in Brazil, they’re out in the middle of nowhere. Mines especially are located in desert areas even more.”
AI-driven heliostats
Heliogen’s heliostats have evolved with experience, originally planned as octagonal, they are now square with the slight curve at the edge. This way they pack tighter for shipping from their factory and for ease in creating Heliogen’s autonomous cleaning module that cleans the rows of heliostats in 3 steps, first with ambient air, then dry dusted with a soft brush, and only if the camera detects dirt on the surface, such as bird droppings, then with water.
Heliogen Announces Appointment of Industrial Energy Transition Veteran Barbara Burger to Board of Directors
September 14 2022
https://ih.advfn.com/stock-market/NYSE/heliogen-HLGN/stock-news/89060757/heliogen-announces-appointment-of-industrial-energ
Former Chevron executive to bring expertise in industrial growth and energy transition
Heliogen, Inc. (NYSE: HLGN), a renewable energy technology company utilizing concentrated sunlight and thermal storage to decarbonize industry, today announced the appointment of Barbara J. Burger, PhD, as a member of the Board of Directors, effective September 12th. Dr. Burger replaces David Crane following his recent nomination by President Biden to serve as Under Secretary for Infrastructure at the Department of Energy.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220914005296/en/
Barbara J. Burger (Photo: Business Wire)
“We are pleased to welcome Barbara to the Heliogen Board and are excited to leverage her unique understanding of our customers’ needs for industrial decarbonization,” said Bill Gross, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Heliogen. “Her expertise in the energy and chemical sectors combined with her deep experience in industrial growth and innovation will be a key asset to Heliogen as we scale our technology globally and advance our mission to decarbonize heavy industry.”
Most recently, Dr. Burger served as Chevron’s Vice President of Innovation and President of Chevron Technology Ventures (CTV). During her more than 30-year career at Chevron, Dr. Burger held management positions across International Marketing, Chemicals, Technology Marketing, Lubricants, Ventures, and Innovation. Additionally, Dr. Burger has held a wide range of civic and industrial leadership governing board and advisory council positions including the MIT Energy Initiative, Houston Exponential, Houston Symphony Society, Oil and Gas Climate Initiative Climate Investment LLP, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Greentown Houston, Activate, and Rice University’s Corporate Innovation Practice. Dr. Burger holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Rochester, a doctoral degree in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology, and an MBA in finance with academic honors, from the University of California, Berkeley.
“Heliogen is an exceptional company, and I am honored to join the Board of Directors to help accelerate their growth and their customers’ transition to renewable energy,” said Dr. Burger. “I look forward to the opportunity to join Bill and the rest of the talented Heliogen team as we work to execute the company’s growth strategy and scale its transformative technology.”
About Heliogen
Heliogen is a renewable energy technology company focused on decarbonizing industry and empowering a sustainable civilization. The company’s concentrating solar energy and thermal storage systems aim to deliver carbon-free heat, steam, power, or green hydrogen at scale to support round-the-clock industrial operations. Powered by AI, computer vision and robotics, Heliogen is focused on providing robust clean energy solutions that accelerate the transition to renewable energy, without compromising reliability, availability, or cost. For more information about Heliogen, please visit heliogen.comView source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220914005296/en/
Heliogen Media:
Cory Ziskind
ICR, Inc.
HeliogenPR@icrinc.com
Heliogen Investor:
Louis Baltimore
Louis.Baltimore@heliogen.com
Update on Heliogen institutional ownership.
https://fintel.io/so/us/hlgn
Heliogen institutional ownership.
https://fintel.io/so/us/hlgn
Heliogen CEO Bill Gross on Twitter
“One of our big investors is ArcelorMittal, the biggest steel company in the world,” @Idealab Founder @Bill_Gross says on decarbonization technology, from the Davos WEF. “They use energy to an extreme degree where it’s one of their biggest expenses." pic.twitter.com/8pD34x11K8
— Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance) May 27, 2022
Heliogen, Inc. Announces First Quarter 2022 Financial and Operational Results; Reports Progress on Deployment of Commercial-Scale Solar Energy Systems
May 23 2022 - 07:00AM, Business Wire
https://ih.advfn.com/stock-market/NYSE/heliogen-HLGN/stock-news/88181975/heliogen-inc-announces-first-quarter-2022-financ
Heliogen, Inc. (“Heliogen”) (NYSE: HLGN), a leading provider of AI-enabled concentrated solar energy technology, today provided its first quarter 2022 financial and operational results and reaffirmed its previously announced guidance for 2022.
First Quarter 2022 Highlights
- Signed full project agreement with Woodside Energy (USA) Inc. (“Woodside”) for the commercial-scale demonstration and deployment of Heliogen’s AI-enabled concentrated solar energy technology
- Entered into a collaboration agreement with Woodside to jointly market Heliogen’s technology in Australia
- Began site preparation and setup for its first full-scale manufacturing facility in Long Beach, California
Recent Highlights
- Finalized and executed a lease for Brenda Solar Energy Zone with U.S. Bureau of Land Management
- Announced partnership with Hanwha Power Systems for the production of a 5 megawatt electric (MWe) next-generation supercritical CO2 power block integrated with high-temperature solid media thermal energy storage designed by Heliogen and to be deployed with the Woodside project
- Reported significant progress in the operationalization of the Long Beach manufacturing facility
Executive Commentary
“Heliogen’s progress in deploying our groundbreaking solar energy technology with world class partners continued at a rapid pace during the first quarter of this year,” said Bill Gross, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Heliogen. “The momentum we built during 2021 has put us in a great position to maintain our trajectory in 2022 and continue meeting milestones on our path to deployment of solar energy systems for heavy industry. We remain on track to achieve our financial and operational goals this year, which will serve as the foundation for our continued growth in 2023 and beyond.
“During the first quarter, we finalized and signed the full project agreement with Woodside for our first commercial-scale, single-module 5 MWe facility,” continued Gross. “We continue to make great progress with several other potential customers including global metals and mining company Rio Tinto. I’m also pleased with the discussions taking place with Woodside as we kick off our collaboration effort to jointly market Heliogen’s technology in Australia.
“On the manufacturing and development side, we have made rapid progress on the build-out of our facility in Long Beach, California. Multiple fully-automated pilot production lines are now operational along with the vast majority of our reliability and testing lab. We remain on track for the main production lines to be operational in the second half of this year. The impressive progress our production team has made on this facility is a testament to their ingenuity and efficiency, which we expect to apply across all manufacturing, installation and operational efforts,” concluded Gross.
2022 Guidance Reaffirmed
Heliogen today also reaffirmed its previously announced 2022 guidance of between two and three modules contracted and $20 - $25 million of revenue. Heliogen believes the number of modules contracted is the most useful indicator of demand for its products and technology at this stage in its lifecycle. Over time, Heliogen expects these contracts to be converted to revenue as the projects are installed, although there is no assurance as to the time period for such conversion.
First Quarter 2022 Financial Results
For the first quarter 2022, Heliogen reported total revenue of $3.5 million, total operating expenses of $30.0 million and net loss of $59.0 million. Heliogen’s net loss was driven primarily by a non-cash provision for contract losses of $33.8 million related to its first commercial-scale facility and non-cash share-based compensation expense of $13.0 million. Heliogen’s Adjusted EBITDA, which excludes these and other impacts, was negative $16.3 million for the first quarter 2022.
Conference Call Information
The Heliogen management team will host a conference call to discuss its first quarter 2022 financial results today, Monday, May 23, 2022, at 10:00 a.m. EDT. The call can be accessed via a live webcast accessible on the Events & Presentations page in the Investor Relations section of Heliogen’s website at www.heliogen.com. The call can also be accessed live via telephone by dialing 1-877-407-0789 (1-201-689-8562 for international callers) and referencing Heliogen.
An archive of the webcast will also be available shortly after the call on the Investor Relations section of Heliogen’s website.
About Heliogen
Heliogen is a renewable energy technology company focused on eliminating the need for fossil fuels in heavy industry and powering a sustainable future. Heliogen’s AI-enabled, modular concentrated solar technology aims to cost-effectively deliver near 24/7 carbon-free energy in the form of heat, power, or green hydrogen fuel at scale – for the first time in history. Heliogen was created at Idealab, the leading technology incubator founded by Bill Gross in 1996. For more information about Heliogen, please visit Heliogen.com.
Use of Non-GAAP Financial Information
Management uses certain financial measures, including EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA, to evaluate our financial and operating performance that are calculated and presented on the basis of methodologies other than in accordance with GAAP. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors and analysts to assess our ongoing financial performance because they provide improved comparability between periods through the exclusion of certain items that we believe are not indicative of our core operating performance, enhance the overall understanding of our past financial performance and future prospects, and remove items that may obscure our underlying business results and trends. These measures should not be considered a substitute for, or superior to, measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP, and our calculations thereof may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies. Please see the accompanying tables for reconciliations of the following non-GAAP financial measures for Heliogen’s current and historical results: EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA.
Heliogen, Inc.
($ in thousands, except share data)
Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets
(unaudited)
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220523005394/en/
Heliogen Investor Contact
Louis BaltimoreHeliogenPR@icrinc.com
Investor Relations
Louis.Baltimore@Heliogen.com
Heliogen Media Contact:
Cory Ziskind
ICR, Inc.
Heliogen receives $89m from Woodside and US Department of Energy to unlock large-scale green hydrogen production
By George Heynes
on May 04, 2022
https://www.h2-view.com/story/heliogen-receives-89m-from-woodside-and-us-department-of-energy-to-unlock-large-scale-green-hydrogen-production/
Heliogen, developer of an innovative solar technology that can produce hydrogen on an industrial scale, has been supported with a total of $89m from Woodside and the US Department of Energy.
The product in question is Heliogen’s AI-enabled concentrated solar energy technology which, through automation, is able to acquire optimum concentrations of the sun to generate heat for electrolysers.
The green hydrogen produced from this process can be used to move renewable and clean energy across continents at cost-competitive rates.
$50m will be provided by Woodside to help development of the technology and commercially deploy the technology across the US.
Bill Gross, Founder and CEO of Heliogen, said, “This development milestone further demonstrates Heliogen’s momentum through commercial, technological and governmental partnerships.
“Bringing together the needs and expertise of world-class companies like Woodside, Hanwha, and others will accelerate the pace at which Heliogen is able to deploy our innovative technologies for providing clean energy to heavy industry.
“The support of the US Department of Energy is also critical in moving technologies like ours into commercial deployment phase. I am incredibly excited at what our company can achieve in 2022 and beyond.”
Steve Schell, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Engineer at Heliogen, said, “We are proud to transition out of the design phase and into testing and implementation of our advanced sCO2 power cycle.
“The innovative design we have developed is a testament to our world-class engineering capabilities and our partnership with Hanwha, which brings unparalleled expertise in designing, developing and commercialising sustainable power systems.
“Our collective teams have taken a significant step forward in developing the technology that will play a critical role in decarbonising heavy industry to fight climate change.”
Tweet from Heliogen CEO, Bill Gross
.@HeliogenInc & @generalelectric
— Bill Gross (@Bill_Gross) May 2, 2022
I'll be speaking on a panel tomorrow @ #MIGlobal with @larryculpjr CEO of GE & w/ @SullyCNBC.
We'll be talking about breakthrough technologies redefining our energy future (see below). It should be live-streamed for freehttps://t.co/MbQ5gp4QyA pic.twitter.com/heqJHNStcj
Heiiogen - The new way to power the planet
By Joanna Sampson - Apr 13, 2022
https://www.h2-view.com/open-access/the-new-way-to-power-the-planet/
H2 View understands Heliogen has created the world’s first technology that can commercially replace fossil fuels with carbon-free ultra-high temperature heat from the sun, taking a major step towards solving climate change. I’ve heard your technology be described as “one enormous, very accurate magnifying glass”. How does your technology work?
Steve Schell (SS): At Heliogen, we are creating an innovative, next-generation form of concentrated solar thermal (CST) technology in the category of ‘central receiver systems’. In a central receiver CST system, sunlight is collected and concentrated by a large array of ‘heliostats’, or mirrors mounted on two-axis tracking systems allowing them to reflect sunlight to a desired location as the sun moves across the sky. These heliostats will produce highly concentrated sunlight by collectively aiming their reflected beams to a common location at the top of a tower. A device called a ‘solar receiver’ is mounted atop that tower, where the concentrated sunlight is absorbed and will produce high temperatures in a heat transfer medium. That heat can then be used directly, or to produce power, or to drive other thermal processes like production of green hydrogen or synthetic fuels.
Heliogen has innovated in several of these areas. Our AI-enabled heliostat tracking system has the potential to achieve higher accuracy using smaller, lower-cost heliostats, faster construction timelines, and continuous monitoring and feedback on the health and performance of the field. In addition, our solar receivers are designed to operate at higher temperatures than traditional CST, which we expect to result in higher efficiencies and more cost-effective thermal energy storage.
We also understand that Heliogen’s technology can not only replace fossil fuels but also transform sunlight into fuels, such as green hydrogen. Tell us more about your plans for green hydrogen production?
SS: Hydrogen use is forecast to grow from 115 million metric tonnes currently to 500-800 million metric tonnes a year by 2050, accounting for 15-20% of total global energy demand. Hydrogen projects already announced represent over $300bn in spending across the value chain, and McKinsey & Company analysts expect at least $150bn of that spend to be related to hydrogen production.
We held successful trials with Bloom Energy for demonstration scale production of green hydrogen at our Lancaster test facility. These trials combined Heliogen’s proprietary solar thermal technology with Bloom Energy’s proprietary solid oxide, high-temperature electrolyser to produce green hydrogen. By combining these two technologies we aim to solve the cost problem that the hydrogen economy is struggling with so much today.
Heliogen and Bloom demonstrated in a trial that together, we can produce hydrogen significantly more efficiently than traditional low-temperature PEM and alkaline electrolysers. Substituting Heliogen’s solar heat for some of the electricity used during the hydrogen production process significantly reduces production cost since our heat is a much more efficient source of energy than electricity. When combined with our thermal storage and renewable energy solution, we expect to be able to further improve the capital efficiency of the electrolyser by powering it nearly 24/7 – and it is truly green hydrogen since it’s made using sunlight.
In February, we announced an award of an exclusive lease agreement with the US Bureau of Land Management for the Brenda Solar Energy Zone in Arizona, where we plan to develop a site that could be sold to a prospective customer, for the production of up to 20,000 metric tonnes of green hydrogen per year. This site is an ideal location for commercial-scale green hydrogen production due to its ample local water supply and close proximity to key distribution channels.
Why is this technology so important? And what makes it unique?
SS: To decarbonise heavy industry, Heliogen has innovated a new generation of concentrated solar thermal energy production that is modular, AI-powered, and scalable. This way, it can be installed ‘behind-the-meter’ on our customers’ premises to directly avoid their purchase of fossil fuels and enable them to take control of their own energy generation on-site.
Our heliostats can be manufactured efficiently in a factory, at scale, enabling mass production, providing potential for reduced cost to our customers, as well as supporting much more flexibility in the siting of these projects.
In addition, our technology’s modular design allows us to standardise the components to reduce overall costs while also eliminating single points of failure. This modularity allows Heliogen to target the huge industrial market – we are not limited to just the utility-scale market.
Another huge advantage that Heliogen’s technology will provide is low-cost energy storage that is dramatically less expensive than batteries. Because Heliogen can achieve higher temperatures, Heliogen can shrink the footprint and the cost to store thermal energy in solid media, such as rocks, ceramic, or sand, enabling near 24/7 operation, and solving one of the key problems with most renewable energy – intermittency. While most renewables provide power between about 20% and 40% of the time, called the capacity-factor, Heliogen plans to build systems for its customers that provide a capacity factor up to 85% depending on customer preferences. Industrial facilities typically continue running after the sun goes down, and Heliogen’s technology will be able to uniquely support those needs.
Ultimately, Heliogen’s technology will provide meaningful flexibility in scale, in application, and in time of use. For industrial customers, those are the core components of an ideal source of energy.
What industries can use your technology?
SS: Right now, our technology is already recognised as a potential game-changer by many of the world’s largest heavy industrial operators, ranging from energy to mining to steel. We have commercial relationships in various stages with several of these companies including Woodside Energy, Rio Tinto and ArcelorMittal.
The universe of prospective customers includes cement companies, mining companies, steel companies, oil & gas companies, and hundreds of other huge industrial customers who are looking to reduce their carbon emissions and eliminate fossil fuel cost volatility from their planning processes.
Heliogen’s technology is currently being tested in Lancaster, California. Why this location?
SS: There are several reasons why Lancaster was selected as the location for our test facility beyond proximity to our company headquarters in Pasadena. The Antelope Valley has some of the best solar resource available anywhere in the world, so we’re able to test our system with more sunny days, and in a hot desert climate typical of our expected project locations. Importantly, the leadership of the City of Lancaster has been very supportive of renewable energy and cleantech in general and Heliogen in particular.
We understand your test facility comprise 400 heliostats but that a proper Sunlight RefineryTM will be 40,000 heliostats. How will this be scaled up?
SS: In order to scale manufacturing of heliostats, we are setting up our first full-scale manufacturing facility. This state-of-the-art facility will include assembly lines, an expansive test facility, and rapid development centre for the production of heliostats and other components. Located in Long Beach, California, the plant is expected to become operational in the third quarter of 2022.
For the heliostats themselves, it’s a matter of replication of a qualified design. We put prototypes and pilot production heliostats through extensive performance and reliability tests, from freeze/thaw cycling to wind tunnel testing to firing hail balls at the mirrors. This test campaign gives us confidence the heliostat has the potential to continue operating well over its life in the field.
We ensure our control system is capable of controlling a larger field by having it control a field of 40,000 “virtual heliostats” – essentially having one server emulate a large field of heliostats, while another server controls it. In this way, we can confirm that our software is running fast enough to keep up with the control needs for a large field.
We understand that Heliogen’s vision was to make it like farming. Can you tell us more about this?
SS: In order for solar to grow to large enough scale at a cost that’s competitive with fossil fuels, heliostats need to deployed in a highly automated way, similar to how modern farms plant and harvest crops with machinery instead of people. Our technological breakthrough is a platform that is modular, AI-powered and scalable, leveraging inexpensive, readily available materials that can be deployed in the field to generate concentrated solar energy more efficiently, with lower construction and maintenance costs than previous technology. This will enable mass production and rapid learning-curve cost reduction that has not previously been applied to concentrated solar.
What happens if Heliogen’s technology is adopted at scale? What does that global roll-out look like?
SS: The market in renewable energy and more broadly across the energy transition space remains incredibly strong, and our technology is already recognised as a potential game-changer by many of the world’s largest heavy industrial operators.
To reach adoption at scale, we expect our initial projects to be based on building complete ‘turnkey projects’ where we deploy Heliogen technology and equipment ourselves. The project agreement that we just signed in March with Woodside Energy, the largest oil & gas company in Australia, is a good example of that model. As more industrial operators make initial purchases of our technology, we expect demand to grow as a result of the demonstrated benefits. Our goal is for that to lead to replacing more and more of our customers’ existing energy supply with Heliogen’s heat, power and hydrogen products.
In the medium term, once we have engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) partners with an established track record of helping us deploy our technology, we expect to transition towards acting as a supplier of Heliogen’s technology and equipment rather than being responsible for the installation. In the long term, we also expect to use more of a licensing type model, in which we license our patent-protected technology to owner-operators and EPC companies.
This evolution from turnkey projects to equipment sales to licensing is what may enable Heliogen to scale our technology in a very large way and make a big impact on the global energy landscape.
A two-part question to end with. Firstly, we understand that geopolitics was founder Bill Gross’ inspiration for Heliogen. Can you tell us the story behind this inspiration?
SS: Bill was first inspired to transform the energy industry during the oil crisis of the 1970s. As a child, it was surprising to him that turmoil in one part of the world could affect the energy supply for nations thousands of miles away, and that we would go to war to prevent that.
After researching alternative forms of energy, he realised that sunlight is the most evenly distributed natural resource on earth. It made him wonder: what if communities could produce their own energy, renewably, without damaging their environment and without reliance on other countries? Wouldn’t that be one of most impactful transformations in history, simultaneously preventing wars, providing energy to diverse populations, and preventing climate change?
And secondly, with the geopolitics we are seeing today related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and countries highlighting that green hydrogen can displace Russian gas dependency and replace fossil fuels. What role can Heliogen’s technology have here?
SS: Global demand for carbon-free energy is skyrocketing in light of fossil fuel price increases and the volatility of those prices, as well as the growing commitments by companies and countries around the world to reduce their carbon emissions. Our company addresses these critical needs. As fossil fuel prices increase, our offering becomes even more attractive as a way for customers to take control of their own energy generation on-site. We expect to help companies save money by reducing their fuel costs and their reliance on fossil fuels that are notoriously subject to major supply shocks, such as we are witnessing right now.
This article was published in the April issue of H2 View magazine.
Concentrating solar power with heat storage could compete with batteries
For short-term storage in a 100% renewables grid, thermal energy storage located at concentrating solar power plants could compete with batteries, found a study using an idealized grid model. Seasonal storage needs could best be met with power-to-gas-to-power technology.
MARCH 15, 2022 WILLIAM DRISCOLL
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/03/15/concentrating-solar-power-with-heat-storage-could-compete-with-batteries/
Concentrating solar power plus thermal energy storage (CSP+TES) could be cost-competitive with battery storage for achieving a least-cost 100% renewables grid in the continental US, researchers have found.
For seasonal storage, power-to-gas-to-power had lower costs than CSP+TES.
Researchers used a simple model of the grid that assumed free lossless transmission across the continental US. They said their results could guide future studies using more detailed models, and expected that a model realistically representing transmission would not fundamentally alter the relative roles of the generation and storage technologies they evaluated. The study was published in the journal Advances in Applied Energy.
With CSP, mirrors direct sunlight onto receivers containing a heat transfer fluid, and the heat is used to run a steam turbine. Adding thermal energy storage allows electricity to be generated later.
CSP alone costs more than solar PV, and when researchers ran the model without TES, it selected no CSP. But TES costs less than battery storage, and when TES is added to CSP, the technology combination becomes competitive with batteries, the study found. The system cost savings of adding CSP+TES to a system with batteries was slight, at only 0.07 cents/kWh.
For increased uptake of the combined technology, cost reductions for CSP would be more important than cost reductions for TES. Yet ongoing cost reductions for batteries, as projected by NREL, would counter increased uptake of CSP+TES.
With power-to-gas-to-power (PGP) technology, renewable power is used to generate hydrogen from water, using electrolyzers. The hydrogen is later used to generate electricity using fuel cells, in the approach modeled by the researchers.
Seasonal storage needs in a 100% renewables grid were met with PGP storage capacity reaching 89,000GWh, the model showed. Short term-storage, typically with daily cycling, was met with far less capacity: 620GWh of thermal energy storage capacity, supplying 0.6% of total electricity supply, and 350GWh of battery storage capacity.
Demand response was represented in the model by allowing the system to supply less than the historical use profile “by paying a high cost.” Efforts to increase demand flexibility “could minimize the value” of CSP+TES, the authors said.
When methane gas units at varying percentages of generation were permitted, in a sensitivity analysis, the model selected batteries when methane gas generation was reduced to 5%, selected PGP with methane gas at or below 2%, and selected CSP+TES with methane gas at or below 0.1%.
The open-access article presents all cost elements for the generation and storage technologies considered, and is titled “The role of concentrated solar power with thermal energy storage in least-cost highly reliable electricity systems fully powered by variable renewable energy.”
It’s A New Dawn For Concentrating Solar Power
By Tina Casey, Published 3/13/2022
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/03/13/its-a-new-dawn-for-concentrating-solar-power/
The concentrating solar power dream lives on, with new electric vehicle battery angle (image courtesy of Heliogen).
Concentrating solar power first emerged on the renewable energy field just a few years ago, and critics were quick to go on the attack. Nevertheless, fans of the technology forged ahead. Now all that hard work is about to pay off, and the EV battery supply chain could be a beneficiary.
The Concentrating Solar Power Advantage
As the name suggests, concentrating solar power systems collect solar energy that reflects from fields of specialized mirrors called heliostats, or from long, curved metal structures called parabolic troughs. The reflected energy is concentrated on a specialized oil, molten salt, or other transportable medium, to generate high heat for use in running various industrial processes.
Generating steam to run a power plant is the primary use case for concentrating solar power, which raises the question of why not simply use solar panels to generate electricity. That’s a good question. The answer is that the transportation medium in a concentrating solar power system also doubles as an energy storage medium.
All else being equal, a concentrating solar power system could store enough solar energy to tide itself over for night-time hours, and coordinate with other renewable energy systems to deliver electricity on same 24/7 capability expected of fossil and nuclear power plants.
While the Obama administration promoted next-generation nuclear technology, it also counted on concentrating solar power to showcase the ability of US innovators to push the renewable energy envelope into 24/7 territory.
At the time, critics charged that concentrating solar power systems were too expensive and complex, but the prize of 24/7 dispatchability was a tempting one back then, and now Russia’s homicidal rampage through Ukraine has raised giant new red flags over the security risks inherent in both fossil and nuclear energy systems.
Nuclear Energy vs. Concentrating Solar Power
In particular, Russia’s attack on nuclear facilities in Ukraine demonstrates how easy it can be for one rogue nation to threaten an entire continent with widespread disaster. The unprovoked war has undercut the argument that nuclear energy should play a vital role in rapid global decarbonization.
The nuclear argument had gained force as the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change took shape, with top US investor Bill Gates leading a pack of A-list financiers in the newly hatched Breakthrough Energy Coalition and its sister firm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
Breakthrough’s focus on nuclear energy is no surprise, considering that Gates is also a backer of the nuclear firm TerraPower. However, in tune with Breakthrough’s broader mission of energy innovation, Gates was also an early backer of the concentrating solar power startup Heliogen.
So, how do the two Gates ventures stack up? TerraPower’s modular design still appears to be in the “experiment” phase. A proposal is in the pipeline to build the first one in Wyoming with a hearty assist from the US Department of Energy, but critics have questioned whether new designs can avoid the cost and efficiency issues that have bedeviled the nuclear industry in the US.
Even if all goes according to plan it will be years, perhaps decades, before the modular design angle pitched by TerraPower can prove itself on the market.
Meanwhile, Heliogen already appears to be one jump ahead.
The Modular Solution
In terms of the modular approach to manufacturing, Heliogen could be the TerraPower of the concentrating solar power field, only with a much greater chance of bringing its modular business model to market.
The main bottom line issue with both nuclear and concentrating solar power is that costs are higher when each project depends on site-specific tailoring. If modular components can manufactured in quantity at a central location and shipped out, costs should drop significantly.
For concentrating solar, that opens up the potential for co-locating solar operations with industrial facilities, and that is what Heliogen appears to have in mind.
Heliogen first crossed the CleanTechnica radar back in 2019, when it burst out of stealth mode.
“While TerraPower has been pitching nukes, the Heliogen research team has been hammering away in deepest secrecy at its research facility in Lancaster, California, with the aim of developing a concentrating solar power system that can deliver temperatures of more than 1,000 degrees Celsius,” we observed. “Reading between the lines of Heliogen’s first ever press release, that puts the new solar system in direct competition with fossil fuels for high-heat industrial processes including cement and steel production.”
How Does It Work?
Heliogen’s contribution to the concentrating solar power field is the application of high efficiency supercritical carbon dioxide technology. The basic idea is to shrink the size of components, lower costs, and promote modularity.
Last December was a busy month for Heliogen. The company went public and finalized the terms of a $39 million Energy Department award, aimed at supporting the company’s plans for its first new commercial scale manufacturing plant, to be located in Long Beach, California.
“The Company will apply the funds received from the DOE towards a commercial-scale facility leveraging its AI-enabled concentrated solar technology,” Heliogen explained. “In particular, the DOE funds will support the implementation of Heliogen’s unique concentrated solar technology which couples its AI-powered heliostat field with a supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power cycle.”
“Steam-based power cycles are typically used in thermal energy plants to convert heat into electricity, but advanced sCO2 cycles will reach higher efficiencies at lower cost with a smaller footprint and reduced water use,” Heliogen added. “With its numerous advanced technologies, the Heliogen system is expected to unlock the production of low-cost, near 24/7 carbon-free electricity, highlighting the potential for concentrated solar technology to power industry and accelerate the clean energy transition in the United States and beyond.”
The EV Battery Angle
Heliogen announced the launch of preliminary work on its new manufacturing facility last month, and it won’t be long before we find out whether or not this thing works. The company is aiming for a Q3 startup this year, and the first heliostats to roll off the assembly line are already slated for Heliogen’s first project, which appears to be a mine in Boron, California, under the Rio Tinto umbrella.
As described by Rio Tinto, the Boron mine is one of only two “world class” sites for borates in the world. The mine has been operating since 1927 and concentrating solar power will give provide it with an opportunity to reduce its carbon emissions by about 7%.
That’s good news for electric vehicle fans who are concerned about the carbon footprint of the EV materials supply chain.
In an interesting twist, last year Rio Tinto also revved up a demonstration facility at the Boron site, aimed at recovering lithium from waste rock. If all goes according to plan, the mine will help contribute battery-grade lithium to the domestic EV supply chain, so stay tuned for more on that.
Stunning aerial photographs show the impressive solar infrastructures that will soon power the whole world
BY ALEX SCIMECCA AND NICK LICHTENBERG
March 10, 2022 7:00 AM EST
https://fortune.com/2022/03/10/aerial-photographs-show-solar-infrastructures-that-will-soon-power-the-world/
What will the world of the future look like?
It's a question that's increasingly inescapable in the era of global warming, or, as scientists increasingly call it, the Anthropocene: a world shaped by humans, the machines we use, and the pollution those emit—a world of anthropogenic change.
The war in Ukraine is exposing in harsh terms the world's continued heavy reliance on old-school fossil fuels, as gas prices skyrocket with the U.S. banning the imports of Russian oil. What would it actually look like if alternative energy sources were truly embraced on a global scale?
This is the question at the heart of German aerial photographer and artist Tom Hegen’s latest body of work, The Solar Power Series, which explores what the earth’s surface could look more and more like if we solely use the sun’s power to satisfy our hunger for energy.
It's staggering to think about how much energy is effectively wasted from lack of proper utilization of solar power. The amount of power from the sun that strikes the earth in a single hour is more than the entire world consumes in a year, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
The landscapes that Hegen captures could become the norm, if we humans as a collective group make it a priority to alter our current interaction with the world.
This edited Q&A has been condensed for space and clarity.
What story do you hope to tell the world in your Solar Power Series?
Hegen: A lot of my work is based on the topic of the Anthropocene. It’s the proposed current era in which humans have become the most significant factor influencing the earth's geological, ecological, and atmospheric processes. Climate change is only one of the real-world problems caused by human activities. I want to visualize our interaction with nature. I document places we all connect to since we all benefit from the resources extracted, gained, or processed at those particular places. My latest body of work is around energy transformation from burning fossil energies to more sustainable solutions.
Where do you take us in your latest project?
Among the locations featured in The Solar Power Series are Ivanpah (California), Crescent Dune (Nevada), Les Mées (France), Planta Solar (near Seville, Spain), and Gemasolar (also near Seville). Most of these solar power production sites are kind of pilot projects and first of their kind constructed within the past 15 years. Those round, center-oriented constructions are solar thermal power plants. Thousands of mirrors called heliostats concentrate the sun’s energy to a tower that heats molten salt. The salt can reach very high temperatures and hold the heat even after the sun has gone down. The heat is used to boil water and drive a steam turbine that generates electricity in large quantities.
And this could be a very fruitful solution. Water, wind, and sun provide a tremendous amount of energy. The question is, how do we transform the energy into power that we can make use of, bringing it to places where we need it and having it available whenever we need it.
How does aerial photography change the way you view the world from this bird’s-eye view?
Aerial photography, to me, is like data visualization for scientists. The elevated perspective has such a remarkable ability to show the scale and context of a landscape. I also enjoy the abstraction and aestheticization that comes with changing the perspective. There is no time for me to experience the landscape and see all its details [when up in the air]. When I come back from production and look at the images on a large monitor, I have a second encounter with the landscape and can explore all the details in the scenery.
[Aerial photography] shows dimensions and reveals insights we wouldn’t be able to see from the ground. None of the places I photograph have been intentionally designed to be viewed from the air and make visual sense. This demonstrates that we are all artists, creating on the canvas of the earth’s surface. In this context, I see myself as a curator looking at places that we have drastically altered.
Where do you see solar power going in the upcoming decade? Will we fall short in sustaining our world, or will any action help?
To keep the planet a place worth living [on], we need to protect its resources and the state of nature. For the transformation from extracting and burning fossil fuels and polluting our air to more sustainable options, solar energy has the power to play a significant role. However, I assume it can’t be the only option. We need to find multiple ways of providing more clean energy, and yes, every step toward it helps.
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