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EFFICIENT COMPACT MODULAR THERMAL ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEM

Project description

Innovative thermal energy storage system key to the energy system decarbonisation

Thermal energy storage allows excess energy to be stored and used hours, days or months later at scales ranging from the building, district, town or region. The EU-funded ECHO project plans to develop an alternative thermal energy storage solution. The proposed system will be compact, flexible, modular, plug-and-play, sustainable and digitally controlled. It will be based on thermochemical materials combined with phase change materials for space heating and cooling, domestic hot water production and ice storage. The system will be charged either by exploiting the electricity overproduction from the grid or by directly connecting to renewable energy sources installed in the building. A heat pump will convert electrical energy into thermal energy.

Objective

The project’s goal is to develop and demonstrate novel modular, compact, high performances and Plug&Play thermal energy storage (TES) solutions for heating, cooling and hot tap water production. The new concept of TES proposed in the project will provide electricity load shifting with meaningful peak shaving of the thermal and electric load demands. Furthermore, the exploitation of renewable sources will be a key point of the new TES device considering at the same time the cost-effective results in terms of energy, costs and sustainability of the system.
The project will provide a TES system able to store energy for heating and cooling in building applications for a period of at least four weeks. The novel TES system will be based on a closed-loop TCM reactor insulated by PCM and equipped with an ice storage, again integrated with PCM, for high cooling energy demand. The thermodynamic cycle has been designed to benefit from a further PCM thermal buffer tank, breaking through the closed-loop concept by compensating the energy for humidification with its latent heat. An advanced heat pump will be finally dedicated to the power conversion during the thermal charging process of reactor and PCMs storages, increasing the overall performance.
A dedicated control system will be developed to operate the TES according to the energy production and the end-users’ requirements, adapting to the conditions of use according to the type of air conditioning system and the particular demand for domestic hot water.
The TES solution will be adaptable to all the different possible European scenarios, in terms of energy policy and end-users’ requirements. It will be designed to be used both as integrated into the building heating system and in the smart electricity grid, or in buildings not connected to district heating and cooling network.
Different characteristics of the system will be taken into account, ranging from storage efficiency and durability to cost reduction and LCA and LCCA.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-IA - HORIZON Innovation Actions

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) HORIZON-CL5-2022-D3-01

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Coordinator

CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 035 250,00
Address
PIAZZALE ALDO MORO 7
00185 Roma
Italy

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Region
Centro (IT) Lazio Roma
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 035 250,00

Participants (17)

Partners (2)

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