Advanced HYBRID solar plant with PCM storage solutions in sCO2 cycles.

Project Information

HYBRIDplus

Grant agreement ID: 101084182

DOI

10.3030/101084182

EC signature date 4 October 2022

Start date 1 October 2022

End date 30 September 2026

Funded under

• Climate, Energy and Mobility

Total cost

€ 3 566 216,25

EU contribution

€ 3 566 216,25

Coordinated by

UNIVERSIDAD DE SEVILLA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - HYBRIDplus (Advanced HYBRID solar plant with PCM storage solutions in sCO2 cycles.)

Reporting period: 2024-02-01 to 2025-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

HYBRIDplus proposes a novel CSP plant concept with an electrified Phase Change Material (PCM) Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system in cascade configuration coupled with a high temperature supercritical CO2 power cycle for the next generation of hybrid CSP plants.

The backbone of the project is the innovative TES that integrate recycled metal wools in its core to enhance the thermal conductivity of the PCM. To electrify this new TES, heaters are embedded into the PCM, providing power-to-heat and hybridization capabilities to the CSP plant. The cascade configuration highly increases the efficiency of the system taking full advantage of both, the latent and sensible heat, which highly reduces the footprint of the storage system. The HYBRIDplus solution provides a high degree of dispatchability at low cost and with a very low environmental burden, minimizing the water consumption and reducing the life cycle impact.

Thanks to its innovative TES, able to reach temperatures up to 610 °C, it can easily integrate a high-efficient sCO2 power cycle without requiring major changes to the State-of-the-Art CSP technology, providing high efficiencies, and allowing reductions of the LCoE up to 10%. At the same time, due to the internally electrified storage system, it can be hybridized with renewable energy sources maximizing the dispatchability of the CSP plant while allowing higher penetrations of RES in the grid and providing flexibility services. This CSP concept can reduce the storage specific CAPEX down to 12 €/kWht.

The higher energy density of the PCM storage, the higher efficiency of the proposed plant and the lowered water requirements for the sCO2 power cycles allows the HYBRIDplus solution to reduce the LCA impact 10% with respect to the State-of-the-art, with an expected final carbon footprint below 9.8 gCO2 eq/kWh.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the first 16 months of the project, the consortium focused on three main technical and scientific activities: (i) the engineering of the plant concept along with the detail engineering of the pilot plant, (ii) the broad characterization and selection of the PCMs and metal wools for the TES concept, and (iii) the development and adaptation of techno-economic models to reflect the potential of identified business cases.

The University of Seville (USE) started the development during the first months of the project of the optimization of a cascade thermal energy storage system for a hybrid CSP power plant. This development is the basis for the design of the scaled-up plant proposed by the engineering partner Build to Zero (B2Z), who leverage on the experience of the electrification expert SEICO Heizungen and the preliminary results of a techno-economic model developed by Kungliga Tekniska Hoegskolan (KTH).

This advanced CSP concept was fully supported by a market and geospatial analysis, to maximize the impact of the project. Using this innovative CSP configuration as a model, the team designed a pilot plant able to replicate -at a lower scale- the fundamental scientific challenges of the HYBRIDplus concept, performing a fully detailed engineering of the test rig to be built in the University of Seville premises.

In parallel, the University of Lleida (UDL) performed an analysis of the available PCMs and started an extensive experimental campaign to identify the most promising candidates. These candidates were tested with different metal wools with the collaboration of Deutsches Metallfaserwerk (STAX), a company with extensive knowledge in these materials, to check its compatibility and heat transfer enhancement properties. This PCM-metal wools couples are the core of the newly designed TES of the HYBRIDplus project, and promising preliminary results have been obtained for this first period of the project.

While the main focus of the project is the development of the innovative CSP plant, our exploitation expert partner R2M Solutions has pre-identified other interesting results that have a high potential in the European market.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Even though the HYBRIDplus project is a R&D project, all partners have the possible exploitation results in mind from the beginning. During the first period of the project, 4 exploitable results are identified:
1. ER1. Electrified TES (improved product): the ER manager is B2Z, associated partners are USE and UDL. Main outcome of the project
2. ER2. New method to scale up alloy 20 metal wool production (new method): the ER manager is STAX, associated partners USE and UDL.
3. ER3. PCM selection methodology (improved method): the ER Manager is UDL, associated partners are USE and STAX.
4. ER4. Electric inline heater (improved process): The ER manager is SEICO, associated partners are USE and UDL.

To warrantee the success of the exploitation results, an Exploitable Results Assessment Questionnaire was matured by R2M and is constantly circulated among partners to start setting up the foundations of the future business models and exploitation strategy and to detect possible new exploitation results during the lifetime of the project. At this stage, a description of each detected exploitation result and its potential value on the market has been drafted:
1. ER1. Enhancement of the RE production dispatchability
2. ER2. Fibers of alloy 20, produced cost effectively with steel wool process
3. ER3. New methodology for the selection of high temperature PCMs
4. ER4. Solution provided to be high temp in a corrosive environment

It is expected for the next reporting periods to detail the value proposition of each exploitable results, the customers/market segment targeted and the IPR strategy to be implemented. In particular, the precise the steps needed to move towards the final TRL expected at the end of the project will be considered.

Scheme of the HYBRIDplus solution 2

Scheme of the HYBRIDplus solution 1