Vast Solar builds on success to list on NYSE

Concentrated solar power (CSP) developer Vast Solar and Nabors Energy Transition Corp. today announced an agreement for a business combination that would result in Vast becoming a publicly-listed company on the New York Stock Exchange.

Founded in Australia in 2009, Vast’s proprietary CSP system uses a modular tower design and a unique sodium loop for heat transfer to efficiently capture and store solar heat for conversion into renewable electricity and heat.

The company has pilot tested its technology at a pilot plant at Forbes in NSW (pictured) and is developing a number of large CSP and downstream product manufacturing projects.

The 1.1 MW pilot facility successfully synchronized with the grid in 2018 and operated for nearly three years.

Earlier this month @AuManufacturing reported that Vast had been backed to build a CSP generation plant at Port Augusta in South Australia.

This followed the company’s selection to receive $19.48 million (EUR13.2 million) from an Australian-German collaboration fund, HyGATE, to develop a world-first green methanol demonstration plant, SM1 also in Port Augusta.

CSP is critical to industry decarbonisation as it is capable of generating industrial process heat, making it suitable to replace gas in many industrial settings.

Vast CEO Craig Wood said: “Vast’s CSP technology collects and stores the sun’s energy during the day for delivery at any time, making around-the-clock, clean power a reality.

“While the cost of wind and PV solar have declined significantly, their intermittency remains a key challenge that can only be addressed with storage.

“By providing clean, renewable energy with low-cost, long-duration storage, our CSP system can be incorporated as dispatchable generation in a way that is not possible using PV solar
or wind with batteries. ”

President and CEO of Nabors Anthony Petrello said the combination would accelerate the rate the deployment of CSP technology globally.

The company said it was uniquely positioned to seize opportunities that are in the market right now, as
well as those that will develop as the market for CSP grows over the coming decades.

Vast is looking to develop other CSP projects including VS3 Port Augusta. Permitting is already in place for an expected 150MW CSP plant that will be built on the same site as VS1 and SM1 following successful completion of those projects.

Further reading:
VAST SOLAR’S CONCENTRATED SOLAR GO AHEAD FOLLOWS SOLAR METHANOL PLANT
VAST SOLAR GETS AUSTRALIA AND GERMAN BACKING FOR METHANOL PROJECT

Picture: Vast Solar’s 1.1 MW CSP Demonstration Plant in Forbes, NSW