--- description: Find out why Heliogen HelioHeat is one of the best inventions of 2020. title: Heliogen HelioHeat: The 100 Best Inventions of 2020 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5b2f97ab0cc28e4b/698a1438db29871a6926604c/best-inventions-of-2020-Heliogen-HelioHeat-9.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Nov 19, 2020 # Industry, Powered By The Sun Heliogen HelioHeat by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Courtesy Creating the tons of steel and concrete we use to build our world requires a massive amount of heat—and most of it comes from burning dirty fossil fuels. HelioHeat cleans up that process by using the power of the sun. Here’s how it works: A field of 100,000 motorized, computer-­controlled mirrors concentrates sunlight in the direction of a 40-m-tall tower, “like a giant magnifying glass,” says [Heliogen](https://heliogen.com/ "undefined") founder Bill Gross. There, a hot spot gets up to 2,000°F, where the heat can be harnessed to melt steel or make cement or electricity. Future iterations of the tech, says Gross, could use the sunlight to create hydrogen to power zero-emission automobiles. _—Jesse Will_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2020/5911422/heliogens-helioheat/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2020/5911422/heliogens-helioheat/"},"headline":"Industry, Powered By The Sun","datePublished":"2020-11-19T13:54:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:46:12.070Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2020/5911422/heliogens-helioheat/","keywords":["list","franchise","best inventions","Best Inventions 2020"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5b2f97ab0cc28e4b/698a1438db29871a6926604c/best-inventions-of-2020-Heliogen-HelioHeat-9.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5b2f97ab0cc28e4b/698a1438db29871a6926604c/best-inventions-of-2020-Heliogen-HelioHeat-9.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2020/5911422/heliogens-helioheat/","name":"Industry, Powered By The Sun"}}]}] ```