OpenHydro holds a unique position in the tidal industry. It has developed a state-of-the-art Open-Centre Turbine with a proven ability to generate and deliver electricity to the national grid and a patented method to deploy and recover turbines quickly, safely and economically on the seabed. Simplicity is at the core of OpenHydro’s design philosophy: the turbine has only one moving part, minimising the number of interventions for maintenance. Fundamentally, the Open-Centre Turbine system is designed to deliver the lowest cost of energy. Since the installation of OpenHydro’s first turbine in 2006, the technology has been developed and tested extensively, with prototype designs optimised to provide higher outputs and improved economics. Validation of the full-scale, 2.0MW 16 metre turbine system following the deployment, grid connection and operation of a two turbine array at the Paimpol-Bréhat test site in France brings the technology to TRL 7. OpenHydro’s stated objective is to match and beat the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCoE) of offshore wind. The OCTTIC FTI Pilot project, which brings together a consortium of 4 industrial partners led by OpenHydro, will achieve this through advancement of the turbine system design to improve performance, efficiency and reliability. These advancements when combined with a reduction in operational and maintenance requirements, will deliver significant reductions in capital and operational costs to achieve LCoE targets. OCTTIC will establish a robust industrial production platform and the associated supply chain to produce, assemble and deploy the turbines at scale to deliver LCoE targets and lead the development of the tidal energy market. The outputs of this project will be implemented immediately through the deployment of commercial tidal array projects in partnership with energy utilities to make significant contributions towards the decarbonisation of the European energy system and securing energy supply.

The HIFLEX (“HIgh Storage Density Solar Power Plant for FLEXible Energy Systems”) proposal has the ambition to develop and demonstrate a complete pre-commercial flexible CSP prototype plant featuring cheap solid particles as storage and heat transfer medium. Operation of the thermal storage system over a temperature span of 700°C results in a 2.5x higher storage density and 50% lower cost. During the project a complete pre-commercial solar tower system will be developed and built. The system will be located at a Barilla pasta plant in Foggia, Italy, with the following components: a 20 MWh thermal storage able to provide 800 kWth for 24h, innovative solar particle receiver with 2.5 MWth peak power, heliostat field with about 6000m² of mirror area, a 620°C particle steam generator, a 100 kW electric heater and a 800 kW fuel heater. Fast ramping steam generation at 620°C enabling grid balancing will be demonstrated. The renewable-fuel heater ensures weather-independent availability. Further support of grid stability is achieved by using excess or cheap power from the grid to charge the storage for time-shifted electricity production (power-to-heat-to-power). Continuous long-term operation for 18 months will be conducted to prove the performance. The project aims to verify the technical maturity of the technology for market introduction. Based on the experience from the pre-commercial prototype, the cost reduction potential for a 100 MWe solar tower plant will be validated, as well as the least-cost mix of renewables (PV, wind power, CSP, storage capacity, power-to-heat capacity, renewable fuel) for the future commercial application at Barilla as CHP system will be evaluated. A business plan will be developed for fast market introduction of the technology. The project will provide a strong showcase, as basis for the exploitation activities to create new market opportunities, reduce market barriers and build confidence into the technology.

MOSAIC project aims to exceed the goal of the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan - European Commission of producing CSP electricity at a cost below 0.10 €/kWh. To exceed this goal a commercial CSP plant of > 1GW of nominal capacity is foreseen, in which high nominal capacity of CSP plant is reached in a modular way where each MOSAIC module delivers thermal energy to linked thermal energy storage systems that supply their energy to a high capacity power block (>1GW). This modular configuration guarantees reliability, flexibility and dispatchability according to the needs of the electrical grid while reduces significantly the specific cost of the Power block (€/MW installed). Each MOSAIC module consists of an innovative fixed spherical mirror concentrator arranged in a semi-Fresnel manner and an actuated receiver based on a low cost closed loop cable tracking system. This configuration reduces the moving parts of the whole system decreasing solar field cost while keeping high concentration ratios. This will assure high working temperatures thus high cycle efficiencies and a cost effective use of thermal storage systems. Energy from the sun is collected, concentrated and transferred to the heat transfer fluid at module level where, due to the modular concept, distances from the solar concentrator to the receiver are much shorter that those typical from solar tower technologies. As a result, the efficiency of energy collection is maximized, atmospherical attenuation is minimized and accuracy requirements can be relaxed. All these technical benefits contribute to a much lower capital cost of the whole system while keeping efficiency and reliability. This has consequently a strong impact in the final cost of electricity production. First figures show LCOE estimated values below 0.10€/kWh for CSP power plants of 100 MW nominal power based in MOSAIC concept, additional cost reductions are expected for greater capacities (>1GW) exceeding the goal of the SET plan

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.

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.