Estimating Costs of Heliostat Production at High Volumes Based on a Small-Scale Prototype

Reducing the costs of heliostats is crucial for the worldwide deployment of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). CSP offers a number of advantages over photovoltaic at large scale power generation, such as lower cost and the option of thermal energy storage. However, the costs of a power tower plant are dominated by heliostats, which are usually 50% of the entire facility. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory was awarded funding by the DOE SunShot Initiative to develop a low-cost, rigid foam-based solar concentrator to meet installed cost goals of $75/m2 vs. current costs of ~ $200-250/m2. The design approach was validated by building and testing of a small-scale (6m2) heliostat prototype. Based on the findings of this prototype costs estimates for high production volume using industrial manufacturing technologies were conducted. The findings of these studies as well as lessons learned from manufacturing of the prototype are presented in this paper.