According to JRC CSP platform, with an increased efficiency of component and price reduction, 11 % of EU electricity could be produced by CSP by 2050. In the EC energy strategy, CSP finds mention as a potential dispatchable RES thus increasing potential market/need for CSP if coupled with flexible, high performant and low CAPEX power conversion units. In this sense sCO2 has been worldwide studied for several years as enabling technology to promote CSP widespread. SOLARSCO2OL presents sCO2 cycles as key enabling technology to facilitate a larger deployment of CSP in EU panorama which is composed (also considering available surfaces and DNI) by medium temperature application (most of them Parabolic trough – Tmax = 550°c) and small/medium size plants enhancing their performances (efficiency, flexibility, yearly production) and reducing their LCOE. Considering that compared to organic and steam based Rankine, sCO2 cycles achieve high efficiencies over a wide temperature of range of heat sources with lower CAPEX, lower OPEX, no use of water as operating fluid (a plus for arid CSP plants area), smaller system footprint, higher operational flexibility, SOLARSCO2OL would like to demonstrate in Evora Molten Salt platform facility the first MW Scale EU sCO2 power block operating coupled with a MS CSP. SOLARSCO2OL will capitalize previous EU expertise (SCARABEUS, sCO2-flex, MUSTEC), bridging the gap with extra-EU countries R&D on these topics and studying different plant layouts also to enhance CSP plants flexibility to enable them to provide soon grid flexibility services. SOLARSCO2OL is driven by an industry oriented consortium which promotes the replication of this concept towards its complete marketability in 2030: this will be properly studied via scale up feasibility studies, environmental and social analysis encouraging business cases in EU (particularly in Italy and Spain as two of the most promising EU CSP countries) and Morocco thanks to MASEN.

The project focuses on the Concentrated Solar Power sector (CSP). A HTF (High Temperature Fluid) is a liquid used to heat transport and transfer it in a solar thermal plant. Nowadays, most of the plants (both parabolic or tower technology) use synthetic oil as the HTF, which reaches working temperatures up to 400ºC. However, high temperature cycles accelerate oil degradation and then impurities appear. The appearance of impurities is a problem that affects the operation and the integrity of the current CSP power plants. Oil regeneration is a common operation in many industrial processes, however, there is no specific solution for CSP power plants that meet their efficiency and costs related needs without risking their profitability. By now, CSP power plant operators treat the oil periodically in external far regeneration plants that provide a standard fluid distillation with low efficiency and big fluid loses that represent great costs. Due to sector’s current constraints to increase power plant’s capital investment and operation & maintenance costs new more efficient, and with more flexible management models, HTF regeneration solutions are required. TRANSREGEN is a new high efficiency oil regeneration system that implements a compact & transportable design in order to extend fluid generation and waste management possibilities. Having successfully designed & validated TRANSREGEN technology in a relevant environment, the overall objective of this project is the demonstration of the final solution in solar thermal plants in real operating conditions.

Existing heavily industrialized areas are currently incapable of adopting large-scale industrial symbioses in terms of shared technology/infrastructure use, waste integration, energy and material utilization, as well as expanding through surrounding ecosystems in an inclusive manner for the society despite many of the EU's key strategic priorities in sustainable regional development. Within this context, IS2H4C proposes an ambitious and efficient innovation and action workplan to develop several solutions for the development of Hubs for Circularity (H4C) in diverse industrial areas of process industry surrounded by rural and/or urban settings in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Turkey. The workplan is shaped by development and deployment of most innovative sustainable technologies and infrastructure integration in four demo hubs and is supported by ground-breaking research on societal, governmental, and business innovation for H4C. IS2H4C scales up industrial areas to H4C via implementing systemic change and integrating the surrounding ecosystems to industrial areas. The project implements a digital collaboration platform to manage the resource, infrastructure and information-sharing within H4C via embedding of decision-support modules in the platform. IS2H4C has the ambition of reducing the energy use, waste emissions, and carbon emissions by at least 10%, 20%, and 30% respectively. IS2H4C will contribute to pave the path towards the development of H4C based on the circularity and resilience requirements of existing and future industrial zones and their surrounding ecosystems by prioritizing resource efficiency, maximizing use of renewable energy, prevention of waste, and promoting industrial/urban/rural symbiosis via reuse and recycling of unavoidable solid, liquid, and gas waste streams. All in all, IS2H4C’s biggest ambition is to promote H4C as Europe’s future sustainable regional development models.