Opportunities for Solar Industrial Process Heat in the United States

This report marks a renewed interest in evaluating the opportunities for solar technologies to meet industrial process heat (IPH) demand in the United States. The industrial sector has not typically received the same level of attention and rigor in energy analysis as other end-use sectors, even though the industrial sector accounts for nearly one-third of all U.S. primary energy use (EIA 2020). With the emergence of very low-cost solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies, it is important to develop data and analysis that enable decision makers and analysts to strategically explore how IPH demands could shift toward PV and other solar technologies over the coming decades. This report evaluates established solar thermal technologies, as well as PV-connected electrotechnologies for IPH applications; other renewable heat generation opportunities, such as biomass and geothermal, are excluded.