United States – Woodside Energy (USA) and Heliogen announced additional steps toward the implementation of new solar energy technology that has the potential to play an important role in the development of Woodside’s future energy business.
Woodside has issued Heliogen a Limited Notice To Proceed (LNTP) to start the acquisition of critical equipment for a 5 megawatt (MW) commercial-scale demonstration project in California. Heliogen’s AI-enabled concentrated solar technology will be used in the proposed project.
The LNTP is the result of a six-month feasibility study conducted by Woodside and Heliogen, as well as a front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract that began earlier in 2021. The firms anticipate that Full Notice to Proceed will be issued and that construction will start in 2022.
Heliogen’s ground-breaking technology is a modular, turnkey, AI-enabled concentrated solar energy system that seeks to provide clean energy with near-constant availability. The facility will use powerful computer vision software to precisely arrange an array of mirrors to reflect sunlight to a single target on the top of a solar tower, enabling low-cost thermal energy storage. Customers can add thermal energy storage systems, a turbine for power generation, and electrolysers for green hydrogen synthesis to the baseline system, which offers industrial-grade heat.
In addition, the two businesses declared their intention to jointly sell Heliogen’s technology in the United States and Australia. The companies will consider establishing a roadmap to collaborate on additional potential renewable energy projects, such as replicating and scaling Heliogen’s modular, AI-enabled concentrated solar facility to support Woodside’s forecasted power requirements at its international locations, taking into account Woodside’s commitments to reduce net emissions from its existing and future businesses. A framework for designing, optimizing, and selling modularized industrial-scale and cost-competitive integrated renewable energy and hydrogen solutions in the United States is being discussed, as are marketing rights for Woodside in Australia.
