The Powder2Power project aims to demonstrate at the MW-scale (TRL7) the operation of an innovative, cost effective and more reliable complete fluidized particle-driven Concentrated Solar Technology that can be applied for both power and industrial heat production. The prototype to be developed and tested is based on the modification and the improvement of an experimental loop built in the framework of the previous H2020 project Next-CSP. It will include all the components of a commercial plant, a multi-tube fluidized bed solar receiver (2 MWth), an electricity-driven particle superheater (300 kW), a hot store, a particle-to-working fluid cross-flow fluidized bed heat exchanger (2 MWth), a turbine (hybrid Brayton cycle gas turbine, 1.2 MWe), a cold store and a vertical particle transport system (~100 m). It is planned to organize the experimental campaign at the Themis tower (France) during one year. Adding an electricity-driven particle superheater will enable to validate a PV-CSP concept working at 750°C that is expected to result in electricity cost reduction with respect to the state-of-the-art. At utility-scale, this temperature allows to adopt high efficiency conversion cycles, typically 750°C for supercritical CO2 (sCO2) cycles. The expected increase in conversion efficiency (sun to power) of the P2P solution with respect to molten salt technology is in the range 5 to 9% and the cost reduction is 5.4%. (LCOE). The hybrid CSP-PV concept enables to reach 9% in efficiency increase and the CSP-only concept 5%. The proposed approach includes the sustainability assessment in environmental and socio-economic terms. A special attention will be brought to elaborate in a transparent way all documents necessary to ensure replicability, up-scaling and to assist future planning decisions. Ten participants from 6 EU countries constitute the P2P consortium. Six participants are industrial and service companies, and four are public research institutions and universities.

This training project (TOPCSP) will offer 10 promising doctoral candidates a unique international, intersectoral and interdisciplinary research and innovation framework that will boost their excellence in the development of innovative technologies capable of solving the challenges currently faced by the solar thermal power industry in the EU and worldwide. Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) with Thermal Energy Storage (TES) is a key technology to support the transition to a competitive and sustainable energy system. However, an effort is needed to make this technology competitive by increasing its efficiency, reducing its costs and improving its reliability and environmental profile. TOPCSP project will include research activities aimed at reducing the cost of current CSP plant, increasing the temperature of the heat transfer media of the next generation of CSP plants, developing more efficient power blocks and optimizing the plant design. CSP research requires high-level human resources covering a wide range of competences. TOPCSP will be able to train researchers with the technical knowledge and transferable skills needed to contribute to this aim from either the academic or the industrial sector. The consortium of this proposal will provide balanced scientific and applied skills together with the global vision of the CSP industry that will maximize the employability of the trained researchers. The consortium comprises 8 academic beneficiaries with a long record of research on CSP and two industrial beneficiaries, which are leading companies in the sector. The associated partners of the network include the largest R&D & test centre focused on CSP in Europe, high-tech companies specialized in the different subsystems of the CSP plant, an agency for new technologies, energy and sustainable development, and a training company specialized in R&I project development and management.

The REALIZE project aims to present a carefully selected and pre-qualified portfolio of new renewable energy generation technologies to the EU Innovation Fund (IF) through proposals resulting from successfully completed Horizon projects in Renewable Energy Sources (RES). The project will support IF project promoters to win major Innovation Fund support or propose alternative funding opportunities at EU, national and local level. Intense support will be given to ten technology partners in the consortium building on their results from 15 pre-qualified Horizon projects. From these, we will prepare seven IF proposals spanning a variety of sectors: Concentrated Solar Power, wind, solar thermal and solar photovoltaics, ocean energy and biofuels as energy-producing installations and as manufacturing projects for small-, medium- and large-scale calls. Their technology will be profiled. REALIZE will also reach out to the broader renewable energy community, with conferences and written material addressing IF’s selection criteria; sharing “lessons learnt” (including with Innovation Fund’s designers) and explaining the complementarity of different public funding programmes. Deep collaboration with other projects funded under the same call topic is foreseen but not counted upon.

COMPASsCO2 aims to integrate solar energy into highly efficient supercritical CO2 Brayton power cycles for electricity production. Concentrated solar radiation is absorbed and stored in solid particles and then transferred to the s-CO2. In COMPASsCO2, the key component for such an endeavor shall be validated in a relevant environment: the particle-s-CO2 heat exchanger. To reach this goal, the consortium will produce, test, model and validate tailored particle-alloy combinations that meet the extreme operating conditions in terms of temperature, pressure, abrasion and hot oxidation/carburization of the heat exchanger tubes and the particles moving around/across them.