The European COOPERANT project (Grant Agreement No. 101172882) has published its Deliverable 1.3 report, “Report on CSP-TES requirements for potential key applications,” led by CIEMAT alongside IDENER, Kraftblock, and HSLU. The public document establishes the technical, operational, and thermodynamic specifications required to integrate next-generation Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) with Thermal Energy Storage (TES) across key industrial sectors.
The deliverable positions COOPERANT’s core breakthrough, a 1000°C volumetric air receiver coupled with a hybrid packed-bed TES system using solid-state media and phase-change materials (PCMs), as a catalyst to achieve thermodynamic efficiencies above 42%.
Tailored Requirements for Decarbonization Targets
The report provides a detailed breakdown of operating parameters, storage configurations, and capacity needs across four primary application areas:
- Power Generation (500°C–900°C): Focuses on high-efficiency advanced cycles (e.g., sCO₂ and Brayton cycles) backed by high-capacity TES to deliver dispatchable baseload power.
- Solar Fuel Production (>1000°C): Defines requirements for ultra-high-temperature solar water splitting and thermochemical reactions, requiring extreme thermal cycling durability and rapid charge-discharge capabilities.
- Solar Heat for Industrial Processes (SHIP) (150°C–800°C): Addresses heavy-emitting sectors, including cement, steel, chemical, and pharmaceutical manufacturing, by establishing custom TES integration strategies to handle batch process loads and eliminate fossil-fuel preheating.
- District Heating (70°C–150°C): Outlines requirements for integrating solar thermal networks with short- and long-term storage to offer low-cost, seasonal heating flexibility.
Strategic Alignment with European Policy
The report aligns COOPERANT’s technical roadmap with the EU’s REPowerEU initiative, the amended SET Plan (2023), and the Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP) goals. By reducing overall storage volume by up to 30% through its hybrid TES configuration and utilizing the data-driven COOPERANT-AI Tool for load optimization, the project directly targets the EU SET Plan objective of lowering solar electricity costs below 10 c€/kWh by 2030.