Cooperant
CSP on 1000°C with hybrid storage material
The Cooperant project aims to develop a new high-performance CSP plant using air as the heat transfer medium and a special thermal energy storage system. With this project, the partners pave the way for continuous production of green solar electricity. Temperatures of up to 1000°C will be possible with the new receiver. The new thermal energy storage (TES) is where Kraftblock comes in: A demonstrator will be built at Kraftblock and installed at a CSP plant of partner CIEMAT in Almería, Spain, filled with a new version of the Kraftblock material mixed with a phase-change material.
This demonstrator should result in a TRL 4 validation of the new CSP-TES concept. Three innovations are key of the concept. The first is the Open Volumetric Receiver (OVR), a design to increase the temperature of CSP plants to up to 1,000°C The technology for the receiver is a new development and will be demonstrated in this project.
The second innovation is the storage and the way it is filled. It is a hybrid packed bed thermal energy storage, meaning that the material is piled in the storage, just like in the normal Kraftblock concept. However, in this project we are developing a new material that can be combined with a latent heat phase change material, which should increase the already high density of the Kraftblock material. A special high temperature salt will be used. We are also developing and realizing the sensoric concept, as this is important for the third innovation.
The COOPERANT project will have an AI tool to monitor and control the management of flexible loads for storage. It proposes advanced control based on enhanced Deep Learning (DL) techniques and Multicriteria Design Optimisation (MDO) to make informed decisions taking into account sustainability to optimize its performance and to support feasibility, replicability and scalability paths for wider adoption towards commercialisation.
The project partners are
- Idener Research & Development Agrupacion de Interes Economico
- Kraftblock GmbH
- Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT)
- Holoss - Holistical and Ontological Solutions for Sustainability, LDA
- Phase Change Material Products Ltd.
- Fachhochschule Zentralschweiz Hochschule Luzern
- EngiCer SA
The project is co-funded by the European Union under Project number: 101172882 — COOPERANT — HORIZON-CL5-2024-D3-01.
