The US Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) announced the Solar-thermal Fuels and Thermal Energy Storage Via Concentrated Solar-thermal Energy funding opportunity, which will award $30 million for projects to produce fuels via renewable energy resources and improve thermal energy storage technologies.

This announcement focuses on concentrating solar-thermal energy for electricity and other uses. Projects funded by this opportunity will accelerate the development of solar-thermal energy storage for fuels, other industrial applications, and power production.

This funding opportunity announcement (DE-FOA-0003080) supports the goals of three DOE Energy Earthshots: Industrial Heat Shot, Long Duration Shot, and Clean Fuels and Products Shot.

There are two main topic areas:

• Topic Area 1: Solar-thermal Fuel Production – 4-8 projects, $750,000-10 million each. Projects in this topic area will support research, development, and demonstration applications to produce fuels synthesized using CST-generated heat potentially supported by green electricity. The goal is to enable cost-effective production of hydrogen, ammonia, liquid fuels such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and solid fuels.

• Topic Area 2: Concentrating Solar-thermal Energy Storage – 4-8 projects, $750,000-10 million each. This topic area will support technology development for thermal energy storage systems which can be driven by concentrated solar thermal energy input. The projects may be for electricity production (CSP) or other specified Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) applications such as industrial process heat, chemical production, or fuel production.

SETO anticipates making approximately eight to 15 awards under this FOA ranging from $750,000 to $10 million. SETO encourages diverse teams from universities, nonprofit and for-profit companies, state and local governments, and Tribal Nations to apply.