Advancing University-Level Education on Heliostat Design and Operation: 2024 - 2026

This final technical report documents the outcomes of Northeastern University's Concentrated Solar Thermal Power (CSTP) educational outreach program, conducted under the Heliostat Consortium (HelioCon) with support from the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) (grant SUB-2024-10424) and the U.S. Department of Energy EERE Solar Energy Technologies Office (agreement DE-EE00038488/38714), covering the period summer 2024 through spring 2026. The program was designed around a philosophy of institutionalization: rather than introducing CSTP through a single elective or extracurricular activity, Northeastern embedded heliostat content across nine distinct courses spanning the full undergraduate and graduate curriculum, from first-year design through graduate-level system analysis, supplemented by a dedicated senior capstone track. This vertical alignment ensures every mechanical engineering student encounters CSTP from multiple disciplinary perspectives across successive years of study, creating an educational infrastructure that is self-sustaining within the institution. The curriculum materials, assignments, and pedagogical strategies developed here are fully documented as a replicable blueprint for other engineering programs seeking to build comparable depth of CSTP engagement within their existing course structures, without requiring new degree programs or significant additional resources. In addition to mechanical engineers, because CSTP was used in the first year of engineering, other engineering major students completed homework and projects with CSTP. Also, in a graduate engineering finance course, which many engineers take, CSTP was introduced, and the students completed a financial project. Across the reporting period, the program directly engaged more than 1,000 students. Approximately 200 first-year students built functional heliostat prototypes, achieving 35%-45% light concentration gains; 440 students modeled heliostat dynamics and designed tracking controllers in ME 4555; 64 students applied robotic kinematics to heliostat pointing in ME 3460; ME 4550 students produced full structural and drivetrain design portfolios; 258 graduate students applied capital budgeting methods to CSP investment scenarios in the engineering finance course EMGT 6305; and ME 5680, one of the few U.S. graduate courses devoted solely to CSTP, provided graduate-level depth spanning solar resource assessment, receiver thermal modeling, heat transfer, fluid selection, thermal energy storage, and hybrid photovoltaic-CSTP integration. Four senior capstone teams advanced prototype CSTP subsystems directly relevant to HelioCon research priorities, including an ultrasonic mirror cleaning system achieving 96% efficacy at 0.208 L/m and an indoor solar simulator driven by the NLR Solar Position Algorithm. Inclusion of CSTP in these courses has been institutionalized, and many students in the College of Engineering at Northeastern University will be introduced to CSTP in homework or projects for years to come. As promised in the proposal, these findings are disseminated via open system journal and are universally available. Seven peer-reviewed publications were produced, including four articles in the ASME Open Journal of Engineering and a Best Student Paper Award at the 2026 ASEE Northeast Section Conference.