NREL’s High-Flux Solar Furnace Video (Text Version)

This is the text version of the NREL’s High-Flux Solar Furnace video

[Music playing]

Video opens with upward panning aerial footage of an NREL facility, located on top of South Table Mountain in Golden, Colorado, and overlooking NREL’s campus.

>> Narrator: High above the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, or NREL, sits a modest facility that has the power to control the sun. NREL’s High-Flux Solar Furnace has harnessed the power of the sun for over 30 years. The 10-kW optical furnace amplifies our one sun into the power of 2,500 suns. This allows researchers to test materials and components that require enormous amounts of heat and light. All while being extremely energy efficient.

At the narrator’s first mention of the sun, the footage changes to a direct look at a sun during full brightness with few clouds aside the sun. The footage then turns to a poster board explaining NREL’s High-Flux Solar Furnace. Footage then transitions into the lab space, where the camera pans across a technical work area with many connected devices. The next scene is a computer screen showing output from a computer program, and the following scene shows sparks emitting from a red-hot metal item. Footage switches to a view of the outdoor equipment, seen through a chain-link fence.

>> Narrator: Essentially, it is like using a giant magnifying glass to concentrate the sun. Here’s how it works: A large mirror, or heliostat, tracks the sun. The sunlight is then reflected by the heliostat onto a solar concentrator, comprised of 25 curved mirrors. The concentrator focuses the light into a beam that can be controlled, depending on the experiment. Current applications of the furnace include splitting water molecules to produce hydrogen, decarbonizing natural gas, testing materials and glazings for solar collectors, and studying thermochemical energy storage.

Footage switches to views of the equipment. First shot shows a small aperture where light presumably hits a screen. Next, a large mirror is shown outside, aside other equipment. Next, another mirror made up of many hexagonal cells is shown. This is the concentrator. Next, some interior equipment is shown, and then a computer screen with graphs and data is shown. The footage then changes to applications of the furnace. It shows Xcel Energy pipes, a close-up of flames, an aerial view of rural solar panels, and a network-connection animation overlaid on a night-time aerial view of a city.

>> Narrator: And what’s even more impressive is that this facility is open to all. The High-Flux Solar Furnace is considered a “user facility” and is available to entities outside of NREL, including universities, small and large businesses, and other federal agencies looking to harness the power of the sun.

Video shows rotating aerial shot of facility, with Rocky Mountain foothills in the background. Footage switches to three independent shots of engineers: one tinkering with microelectronics, another on scaffolding, and a third walking through an all-white research area. Clip switches to aesthetic solar glares and then shows NREL’s facility on South Table Mountain again. Text appears in bottom left corner. It reads “Learn more, nrel.gov/csp/facility-hfsf.html." Screen goes black.