"This award is a key step in reducing the cost of solar power to levels competitive with fossil fuel-based power without the need for federal tax incentives," said Randy Parsley, manager, Global Program Development, Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne."We are honored to have been selected."

Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne has developed designs for CSP Power Tower technology that use thousands of articulating mirrors, or heliostats, to track the sun and reflect solar energy onto a receiver mounted atop a 600-foot-tall tower.

Liquefied molten salt is circulated into the receiver, where it is heated to about 1,000-degrees Fahrenheit, then stored in a large insulated tank.

The energy from this stored molten salt is available on-demand to drive a steam turbine to create electricity. Because hot molten salt can be stored for days with little heat-loss, it can be used at night or on cloudy days to generate electricity.

Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne has provided the worldwide exclusive license to SolarReserve, a solar power project company, for the molten salt power tower and heliostat technologies.

As part of the DOE contract to lower costs and increase CSP Power Tower capacity, Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne will use its engineering expertise to optimize system performance and efficiency; use advanced manufacturing techniques that better absorb energy into the receiver; develop a higher-performance, lower-cost second-generation heliostat system; and incorporate a new thermal storage system.

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