Friday, May 7, 2010

Abengoa Solar, SkyFuel Get Department Of Energy Funding

Two area firms, Lakewood, Colorado-based Abengoa Solar, and Albuquerque, New Mexico-based SkyFuel, are receipients of funding as part of a $62M investment effort announced by the U.S. Department of Energy Friday. According to the DOE, it is investing $62M across a total of thirteen companies to advance the concentrating solar power (CSP) industry. Abengoa Solar will receive up to $10.6M from the DOE to develop its new power tower technology, which uses reflectors to collect sun rays to create molten salt to power steam turbines for energy generation. SkyFuel, which develops components for concentrating solar power systems, will develop a CSP trough system which the DOE says has "significantly larger dimensions" which will increase the operating temperature and output of CSP power plants.