GlassPoint Raises USD 20 Million to Scale Solar Industrial Heat Technology
GlassPoint has raised USD 20 million in a funding round led by N.I.S. New Investment Solutions to advance large-scale solar industrial heat projects in the US and internationally. The company's enclosed trough technology produces high-pressure steam for industrial processes at scale using curved mirrors inside agricultural glasshouses.
Founded in 2009 and based in New York, GlassPoint develops solar technology designed to produce industrial process heat at scale. Its enclosed trough system uses large curved mirrors suspended inside an agricultural glasshouse that track the sun throughout the day, focusing sunlight on a boiler tube to produce high-pressure steam. The system occupies approximately one sixth the space of photovoltaic panels producing the same energy output, making it suitable for industrial-scale heat applications. It can also provide heat at night using molten salt thermal storage.
Industrial heating is one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonise because of the low cost of burning fossil fuels for high-temperature processes used to produce metals, plastics, and other materials. GlassPoint says more than half of global industrial activity is located in regions with sufficient solar resources to deploy its technology. Existing projects include a 330 MW thermal installation in Oman that has supplied daily steam since 2017, and an ongoing 1.5 GW thermal project with Ma'aden to decarbonise a bauxite refinery in Saudi Arabia.
New capital from the round will support development of a partnership with Searles Valley Minerals in California to deploy 750 MW thermal of solar technology as part of efforts to decommission the state's remaining coal-fired plants. GlassPoint also plans to expand into Southern Europe and South America, scale its technology centre in Germany, and hire across engineering, business development and finance roles in Dubai and the US. The round included participation from returning investor MIG Capital.
Key figure — USD 20 million
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