Solar electricity price has dropped dramatically, making it the cheapest electricity to add to the grid in many locations. Its variable nature is now becoming a challenge to integrate into the electricity grid. Affordable, scalable, long-term energy storage is required to enable continued low-cost solar electricity deployment. Solar electricity can be used to make fuel, which provides long term energy storage and allows solar electricity to be used for a broad range of applications. We are developing a fuel synthesis technology that works well with variable solar power. It uses air, water, and electricity to make a high energy density, clean fuel that can provide industrial heat and can work in engines, turbines, fuel cells. Our Phase 1 technical work tailors reactant purification and fuel synthesis processes to the characteristics of solar power plants. It will yield lower cost equipment that support fast-ramping fuel synthesis that can go from zero to 100% output each day with the solar cycle. Our Phase 1 market work engages with electrical utilities, fuel suppliers, and fuel consumers to develop a plan to provide clean fuel at the prices, quantities, and purities they require. Our technology will let utility companies use solar power to make their own clean fuel to power generators for peak power and grid firming. It will transform solar power plants from power sources that must be accommodated by the grid into power sources that provide the fuel to stabilize the grid. It will provide a clean fuel to industries that want to decarbonize their industrial heat requirements. It will provide a clean fuel to global shipping companies that want to eliminate sulfur and carbon emissions from their operations.
