Descripción del proyecto
Nuevas fronteras para la energía solar concentrada
La energía solar concentrada (ESC) desempeña un papel fundamental en la economía descarbonizada. A pesar de su potencial en centrales centralizadas a gran escala, su economía del proceso hace que no sea sostenible a escalas más pequeñas. En el marco de AMADEUS, un proyecto anterior financiado con fondos europeos, se desarrolló un dispositivo termoiónico híbrido capaz de convertir de manera eficaz la energía solar en eléctrica. En el proyecto TECSAS, sus investigadores planean diseñar un prototipo de convertidor termoiónico híbrido, con un rendimiento máximo de conversión energética de entre el 20 y el 45 %, para su utilización en la tecnología de ESC en un futuro próximo. El equipo de TECSAS evaluará la viabilidad tecnológica y comercial de las plantas de ESC a pequeña escala alimentadas por este nuevo convertidor y valorará la predisposición para integrarlo de los propietarios de las centrales.
Objetivo
Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) has long been seen as one of the main routes for moving towards carbon neutrality, characterised by both overall system efficiency and Levelised Cost of Energy comparable with photovoltaics. Unfortunately, CSP is currently only implemented through very large centralized plant scales (>100 MW capacity), as process economics make this technology unsustainable at a smaller scale. That’s why, apart from few demo-plants, there is no commercial plant available in the 50 kW – 1 MW range.
In the AMADEUS FET-OPEN project we have developed a thermionic-based converter, that is applied in TECSAS to concentrated solar energy and is able to selectively absorb the radiation to produce electrical power by exploiting efficiently sunlight and excess heat. When applied in substitution of state of the art traditional passive receiver elements, the proposed TECSAS technology allows a maximum increase of the CSP conversion efficiency from 20% up to 45%, potentially more than twice as much state of the art performances, regardless of the plant size.
This can make existing and under construction CSP plants much more efficient, and at the same time allows thinking of scaling down CSP plants to sizes that are currently econonically unsustainable (≤1 MW).
The aim of the TECSAS Launchpad project is to evaluate the technological and business feasibility of downscaled CSP plants (≤ 1 MW) powered by our thermionic converter, as well as to assess the willingness to pay of large scale plant owners which want to integrate TECSAS for performance enhancement. If successful, we will prove that CSP can be applied to benefit several industrial settings, small rural communities and other residential applications.
Ámbito científico
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomics
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsenergy conversion
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energysolar energyphotovoltaic
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energysolar energyconcentrated solar power
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
Convocatoria de propuestas
Consulte otros proyectos de esta convocatoriaConvocatoria de subcontratación
H2020-FETOPEN-2018-2019-2020-4
Régimen de financiación
CSA - Coordination and support actionCoordinador
00185 Roma
Italia