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CORDIS

Store Electricity and Heat foR climatE Neutral Europe

Project description

New solutions for sustainable energy storage

As the global demand for renewable energy rises, energy storage becomes a major challenge in intermittent renewable energies production. Current solutions fall short in terms of efficiency and sustainability, hindering the seamless integration of renewable sources into our power grids. In this context, the EU-funded SEHRENE project aims to revolutionise the electrothermal energy storage concept through the integration of energy conversion within thermal storage. SEHRENE will overcome the limitations of existing technologies, offering an energy-efficient, geographically independent solution that outperforms conventional methods. Specifically, it will exceed the potential energy storage of Li-ion by 8-12 times while remaining sustainable, with no reliance on critical raw materials. The project’s innovative approach signals a transformative leap forward in the pursuit of reliable and eco-friendly energy storage solutions.

Objective

SEHRENE’s new electrothermal energy storage (ETES) concept is designed to store renewable electricity (RE) and heat and to restitute it as needed. It is very energy-efficient (80-85%), is geographically independant and uses no critical raw materials. It enables 8-12 times longer storage duration than Li-ion, with LCOS of 80 – 137 €/MWh, depending on the use-case. This is lower than pumped hydro, the lowest-cost commercial electricity storage. Its lifetime of 20-30 years is 2 – 3x longer than Li-ion. A TRL4 prototype and the digital twins of 3 full use-cases will be delivered: (i) ceramics plant storing excess, on-site PV power in a micro-grid and industrial waste-heat for continuous green H2 production and self-consumption, (ii) a smart-grid, and (iii) a geothermal power plant. The ETES integrates: (i) a novel heat-pump design with a coefficient of performance of 50% the theoretical maximum, (ii) a novel thermal energy storage system with energy density of 90 kWh/m3 (+30%), containing phase-change material in a novel metallic Kelvin cells-like foam and (iii) ORC with novel operating parameters. New digital tools will optimise the energy management of the storage and facilitate investment decisions by potential end-users taking LCA and technico-economic factors into account. SEHRENE unites 5 R&D teams with top-level expertise in prototyping, physics-based modelling, characterisation and digital twins of thermo-electric systems, thermal storage and AI-based energy-management; 1 RE producer, 1 DSO, 1 ceramics company, 1 SME developing decision-support tools, and 1 SME for dissemination and communication. The exploitation plan aims to implement the solution in the first factory in 2029. SEHRENE’s market penetration will enable to capture 1% of the market by 2040 avoiding 90Mm3 of NG and 15Mt CO2/year. R&D and industrial partners project to generate 5.8M€ in revenues by 2035 from sales of heat pumps, thermal storage, ORC, licenses to R&D results and consulting services.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-01

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Coordinator

COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES
Net EU contribution
€ 1 007 513,00
Address
RUE LEBLANC 25
75015 Paris
France
Region
Ile-de-France Ile-de-France Paris
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost
€ 1 007 513,00

Participants (8)

Partners (2)