Politecnico di Milano in the SCO2OP-TES European project to revolutionise energy storage
The Department of Energy of Politecnico di Milano is proud to announce the involvement of Professor Giacomo Persico and his team in the Horizon Europe SCO2OP-TES project. This initiative, with a total budget of around EUR 4.7 million and a duration of four years, aims to revolutionise energy storage as part of the transition towards renewable energy sources.
The SCO2OP-TES initiative, which will lead to the development and validation of an innovative “Carnot Battery” configuration, is an integral part of the European Union’s strategy to reduce emissions in the energy and industrial sectors. This project is part of the recent REPowerEU Plan, which aims to achieve an installation of 1236 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. In fact, Europe is faced with the challenge of not only efficiently converting large amounts of energy from renewable sources, but also of ensuring stability in energy supply and continuity of use at all times of the year. Current storage solutions, such as batteries and power-to-hydrogen systems, are currently not sufficient to cover some specific grid flexibility services, which only energy systems based on direct and reverse thermodynamic cycles operating with turbomachinery can provide.
The project
The SCO2OP-TES project aims to develop and validate the next generation of “Power-to-Heat-to-Power” (P2H2P) energy storage solutions. Involving 16 partners from 10 European countries, it focuses on the development of a new type of “Carnot Battery”, based on the combination of direct and reverse thermodynamic cycles operating with carbon dioxide under supercritical conditions, and which is able to channel available heat from thermal renewable sources or waste heat from industrial processes and power plants into the energy storage process, thus ensuring a very high energy efficiency of charging and discharging, while making the interaction between industrial plants and the electricity grid more effective. The project aims to design, build and test a pilot plant to validate the technology in an industrially relevant environment, and then study its application in large-scale plants. The project was officially launched on 14 December with an inaugural meeting, followed by a series of technical workshops where the details of the pilot site and key components of the energy storage system will be analysed.
The research group of Politecnico di Milano, in particular, will make a crucial contribution to the SCO2OP-TES project, developing and providing innovative techniques, based on Artificial Intelligence, for the design and optimisation of the turbomachines installed in the system, operating with CO2 under high temperature supercritical conditions. The study will therefore lead to the realisation and experimental validation of highly innovative machines of great relevance for the future success of long-term and large-scale energy storage systems.
Says Giacomo Persico:
“Our involvement in this project is a significant step towards the development of innovative energy storage solutions. Collaboration with other European partners will allow us to develop, apply and validate the Artificial Intelligence techniques we have been working on for years for the design and multi-disciplinary optimisation of turbomachines operating with supercritical CO2, thus making a significant contribution to the transition to large-scale renewable energy sources.”
