§16234 Concentrating Solar Power Research Program

Summary

The Secretary must run a research and development program to see if concentrating solar power can make hydrogen and to study doing both hydrogen and electricity together. The work should use existing facilities when possible. It must cover things like shared technology for both outputs, testing heat-driven chemical cycles at solar temperatures and the materials they need, ways to combine solar electricity with biological hydrogen methods, studies of system designs and costs, and coordination with the Next Generation Nuclear Plant Project on high‑temperature materials, chemical cycles, and economics. The Secretary must review and weigh conflicting advice from a 2000 National Research Council review and later DOE-funded reviews. The Secretary must also give an assessment of how concentrating solar technology could affect electricity before, or when, the budget for fiscal year 2008 is sent. Within 5 years after August 8, 2005, the Secretary must give Congress a report on the economic and technical potential for making electricity or hydrogen (with or without cogeneration), including whether a pilot demonstration plant for commercial production would be feasible.