GlassPoint Raises $20M to Accelerate Global Rollout of Utility-Scale Solar Process Heat

New updates have been reported about GlassPoint.

GlassPoint has secured a $20 million funding round led by N.I.S. New Investment Solutions, with participation from existing investor MIG Capital, to accelerate deployment of its large-scale solar industrial process heat projects globally. The capital will primarily support advancement of its megaprojects with Searles Valley Minerals in California—where 750 MWth of GlassPoint technology will help phase out the state’s last two coal-fired power plants—and its 1.5 GWth flagship project with Ma’aden in Saudi Arabia, which aims to decarbonize a bauxite refinery and contribute to national sustainability targets. Management plans to use the new funding to drive commercial expansion in the U.S. Southwest, Southern Europe, the Middle East and South America, focusing on regions where industrial process heat demand is high and solar resource is strong. GlassPoint positions its solution as offering lower-cost industrial heat than fossil fuels or electrification in more than half of global industrial regions, leveraging a model in which it builds, owns, and operates solar steam assets for mining, metals, chemicals, building materials, oil and gas, and desalination customers.

Strategically, the funding reinforces GlassPoint’s claim to scale leadership in solar steam, with its technology already powering roughly 60% of the world’s installed solar industrial steam capacity, including a 330 MWth plant in Oman that has been operating since 2017. The company’s value proposition rests on two proprietary platforms: its Enclosed Trough system, designed to convert nearly 70% of incident solar energy into usable industrial heat, and its Unify thermal storage system, which extends solar heat availability into nighttime and off-sun hours. CEO Rod MacGregor stated that the financing will support entry into several new markets and enable customers to gain a cost advantage while decarbonizing operations. GlassPoint is also channeling part of the proceeds into expanding its Technology Center in Stuttgart, Germany, and scaling hiring in business development, engineering, and finance in Dubai and the United States, signaling a build-out of both technical and commercial capacity to prosecute a growing global pipeline of industrial decarbonization projects.