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Heliostats reflecting a bright future for concentrating solar thermal.

HelioCon’s Midterm Roadmap cover

News

HelioCon’s Midterm Roadmap is Published

Since its establishment, the Heliostat Consortium (HelioCon) has made substantial progress toward closing many of the gaps in concentrating solar power (CSP) research. Learn more about HelioCon’s commercial CSP deployments and SHIP (solar heat for industrial processes) opportunity.

Read the HelioCon Roadmap report and learn more about HelioCon’s pursuit of energy innovation.

reflected target nonintrusive assessment (ReTNA)

Publication Highlight

Advancements in reflected target nonintrusive assessment (ReTNA) for large optical surface measurement

Reflected target systems have become much more viable in recent years due to dramatic advancements in open-source computer vision tools, in particular edge and marker detection. ReTNA also uses a variety of image reconstruction and photogrammetry techniques, made possible by faster computers and widely available Python packages.

Read about the detailed description of the setup, the results generated by this measurement tool, repeated measurement results, and the strengths and limitations of this metrology system.

The Heliostat Consortium (HelioCon) supports research, development, validation, commercialization, and deployment of low-cost and high-performance heliostats.

HelioCon Image Gallery

The National Solar Thermal Test Facility at Sandia National Laboratories. Photo credit: Sandia National Laboratories

Dr. Margaret Gordon inspects heliostats at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility. Photo credit: Sandia National Laboratories

The NREL team gave presentations at the 2022 SolarPACES conference in Albuquerque, N.M.

Dr. Rebecca Mitchell next to her presenation at the 2022 SolarPACES conference in Albuquerque, N.M. Photo credit: NREL

HelioCon at Workshop on Solar Energy, Aug 24, 2022 in San Diego, CA

Crescent Dunes plant waking up in the morning

Crescent Dunes heliostats defrosting in the morning sun

The NREL drone team collecting data at Crescent Dunes plants

Tucker Farrell getting ready to launch the drone to take pictures of far-field heliostats at Crescent Dunes plant

Devon Kesseli measuring the reflectance of a Crescent Dunes heliostat

Rebecca Mitchell radioing into the control room at Crescent Dunes plant

NREL’s Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power (CSP) team recently hosted a group from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) team for a tour of facilities at the NREL Flatirons campus in August 2023.