Hildebradt, Alvin F.

English

University of New Mexico

Volume 25 
Issue 5 Solar Thermal Power (25th Anniversary) 
Fall 1985 
Technical and Policy Issues Concerning the Commercialization of 
Solar Thermal Power Generation: An Overview 
Alvin F. Hildebradt 
Recommended Citation 
Alvin F. Hildebradt, Technical and Policy Issues Concerning the Commercialization of Solar Thermal 
Power Generation: An Overview, 25 Nat. Resources J. 1097 (1985). 
Available at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nrj/vol25/iss5/2 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UNM Digital Repository. It has been 
accepted for inclusion in Natural Resources Journal by an authorized editor of UNM Digital Repository. For more 
information, please contact amywinter@unm.edu, lsloane@salud.unm.edu, sarahrk@unm.edu. 
ALVIN F. HILDEBRANDT* 
Technical and Policy Issues 
Concerning the Commercialization 
of Solar Thermal Power Generation: 
An Overview 
A series of research and development projects has been carried out, 
since 1969, under the guidance of faculty members at the University of 
Houston-University Park campus. This series of projects has culminated 
in a major program funded in part by the United States Department of 
Energy, and in part by various high technology industrial organizations, 
with the objective of providing an alternative to fossil fuel for generating 
electricity on a scale which would be attractive to utility companies. 
Beginning with a small grant from the National Science Foundation in 
1973,' the work has progressed through a series of conceptual demon­
strations of the soundness of the idea of a central "Power Tower" sur­
rounded by movable mirrors (heliostats) which reflect the sun's rays onto 
an elevated receiver. 2 Concept then became concrete with the construction 
by a consortium of a ten megawatt electric power plant which has been 
connected to a commercial utility's southern California electric grid since 
August 1984. 3 The Power Tower simulates a parabola over tens to hun­
dreds of acres with the boiler at the focal point. 
It is evident that an additional financial and technical effort will be 
needed to place central solar thermal power generation in the position of 
*Director, Energy Laboratory and Professor of Physics, College of Natural Sciences and Math­
ematics, University of Houston-University Park. Previously Director of the Solar Energy Research 
Laboratory, which was joined with the Energy Institute to form the present institution. Joint developer, 
with Dr. Lorin Vant-Hull, of the "Power Tower" concept in 1969. 
I. The National Science Foundation provided to the University of Houston Department of Physics
a planning grant of $130,900 for a feasibility study of the Power Tower concept. About one-half of 
that was designated for a subcontract with McDonnell Douglas Astronautics, Huntington Beach, 
California, for system engineering, complement design, and costing studies. An additional award 
of $98,000 provided for the construction of a single heliostat. A second year of the feasibility study 
was funded at $176,900. Successive contracts were awarded directly to McDonnell Douglas for 
development and demonstration, while the University of Houston has received a series of grants and 
contracts from the various agencies which have been responsible for research and development on 
energy beginning with the Energy Research and Development Administration and, currently, the 
Department of Energy's programs mounted by the Solar Energy Research Institute and the Sandia 
National Laboratory. 
2. The Power Tower is described in Hildebrandt & Vant-Hull, Power with Heliostats, 198 Sci.
1139 (Sept. 1977) and in Vant-Hull, Solar Thermal Power Generation: The Solar Tower, Progress 
Toward Commercialization, infra at 1099. 
3. See Vant-Hull, supra note 2.
1098 NATURAL RESOURCES JOURNAL [Vol. 25 
competing with other power sources for an appropriate place in supplying 
United States' urban power needs in the 1990s and beyond.4 The four 
following articles are designed to provide an account of the technical 
development and current technical status of the central solar thermal 
power system, and to review some of the issues of policy, law, and 
economics which must be dealt with in order that the remaining barriers 
may be overcome. 
Dr. Lorin Vant-Hull contributes a thoughtful review of the concepts 
underlying central thermal power generation, along with a specific de­
scription of the applications for the current types of power generators. 
He discusses the pilot plant, Solar One; the repowering program; system 
design and component development; and energy payback. His research 
substantiates the fitness of the current model for economic as well as 
technical success. 5 
Dr. N. Shamsundar provides an introduction to the technical problems 
of thermal energy storage, 6 surveyed from the aspects of need for storage, 
characteristics of a heat storage system, and different ways of storing 
heat. 
Dr. Wayne Wentworth reviews the current status of thermochemical 
heat storage, which appears to be the correct road to the next generation 
of solar power generators designed to be mated with future fuel source 
equipment. 7 He discusses design criteria, chemical heat pumps, and high 
temperature thermochemical heat storage. 
Finally, Dr. John Zuckerman presents a view of the legal and policy 
boundaries currently surrounding the commercialization process, with 
recommendations for overcoming obstacles now in the path of future 
progress. 8 He suggests that federal solar incentives, such as those provided 
for coal, oil, gas, and nuclear power, would do much to speed the re­
alization of the potential of solar power. 
All of the contributors have been engaged in research and study at the 
Energy Laboratory of the University of Houston-University Park, which 
has supported their work. The Energy Laboratory, originally established 
in 1973 as the Energy Institute, is a state-supported unit cutting across 
many disciplines at the University, and provides a means for researchers 
to secure funding from federal, state, and private sources to advance the 
various fields of energy research and development. 
4. See generally Vant-Hull, id.; Shamsundar, Thermal Energy Storage, infra at 1119; Wentworth,
General Characteristics of Thermochemical Heat Storage, infra at 1129; and Zuckerman, Com­
mercialization of Solar Thermal Power Generation: Policy Issues, infra at l 145.
5. See Vant-Hull, supra note 2.
6. Shamsundar, supra note 4.
7. Wentworth, supra note 4.
8. Zuckerman, supra note 4.


Technical and Policy Issues Concerning the Commercialization of Solar Thermal Power Generation: An Overview

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Technical and Policy Issues Concerning the Commercialization of Solar Thermal Power Generation: An Overview

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