Notice of Intent (NOI) - Solar Desalination

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) intends to issue, on behalf of the Solar Energy Technology Office, a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) entitled “Solar Desalination”. This FOA supports research, development, and potential demonstration of early stage technologies that can significantly reduce the costs of desalination powered by solar thermal energy. Rather than utilizing high-value electricity as an energy input, solar thermal desalination can achieve lower costs than current reverse osmosis systems by lowering the cost of collecting and storing solar thermal energy and increasing the efficiency of thermal desalination technologies. Additionally, thermal desalination can be utilized over a wide range of salt content, making it attractive for applications that require very high salinity feedwater or zero-liquid discharge. Applicants will be expected to propose ideas that have the potential to dramatically decrease the cost of producing solar thermal energy, advance early-stage thermal desalination technologies, or design novel integrated systems that creatively use solar thermal energy to lower the cost of producing fresh water. It is anticipated that the FOA may include the following Areas of Interest: Area of Interest 1 – Low cost solar thermal heat - innovative concepts that have the potential to lower the cost of solar thermal collection, transport, and storage below conventional methods of generating heat. Area of Interest 2 – Innovative thermal desalination techniques - Novel, early-stage thermal desalination technologies that are well suited to be coupled with solar generated heat. Area of Interest 3 – Solar thermal integrated desalination - Integrated solar thermal desalination systems showing the potential for low-cost desalinated water. Area of Interest 4 – Solar thermal desalination analysis - Analytic tools, such as systems models, for economic evaluation and resource optimization with solar thermal desalination. Please access the complete Notice of Intent under the "Documents" heading below. This is a Notice of Intent (NOI) only. EERE may issue a FOA as described, may issue a FOA that is significantly different from the FOA described herein, or EERE may not issue a FOA at all. No applications will be accepted through this notice. Please do not submit questions or respond to this Notice of Intent.