Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development
Energy: ENEA in the first european storage research infrastructure network
Creating the first European network of energy storage research infrastructures to encourage growth and diffusion of renewable sources is the objective of the project StoRIES[1] comprising ENEA, Cnr, Eni and 43 partners from 17 European countries, including the German research center Karlsruhe Institut Fur Technologie as coordinator. The four-year project is funded with 7 million euro as part of the European Horizon 2020 program and involves research institutions, technology institutes, universities, industries, members of the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) and associations, including the European Association for energy storage (EASE). To access the research infrastructures made available by the project partners, just participate in the Transnational Access (TNA) calls.
ENEA will participate with eight infrastructures including a hi-tech laboratory to develop innovative materials for medium temperature thermal storage, a solar park among the largest in the world for research, the construction of molten salt concentration plants and a supercomputer capable of performing up to 1.4 trillion mathematical operations per second (1.4 PetaFlop).
"StoRIES is a strategic project both for ENEA and Italy, as it will allow to go deeper into the concept of hybridization of different forms of chemical, thermal and electrochemical storage, in synergy with numerous European research teams", said Giorgio Graditi, Director General of ENEA. “ENEA will make available its CRESCO supercomputer, second in terms of computing power and speed in Italy, the experimental platform dedicated to the development and characterization of new materials and components for thermal storage, the laboratory dedicated to the study and testing of power-to-gas, hydrogen and methane technologies and other unique facilities in Italy”, concluded Graditi.
In addition to making European-level research infrastructures and services accessible, the partners will develop and disseminate energy storage systems, study new, more sustainable materials, work on reducing the costs of technologies and on social acceptance through training and information activities. A specific focus will address hybridisation - i.e. the integration of different technologies and/or storage systems with the aim to increase flexibility and efficiency of the sector - subsequently leading to the definition of a roadmap.
The eight advanced laboratories and unique plants made available by ENEA are:
CRESCO6 - Second HPC infrastructure by order of importance in the public sector in Italy (1.4 PetaFlops of power), operational at the ENEA Research Center in Portici (Naples), it will be used for the modeling of materials to be applied in the energy field.
TCS - Laboratory scale system dedicated to testing gaseous solid reactive systems for high temperature thermochemical applications.
SOLTECA - Experimental benchtop plant of about 20 kW dedicated to the development of innovative materials and systems for medium temperature thermal storage up to 400 °C.
ATES - Laboratory scale structure of about 5 kW aimed at the analysis and characterization of heat transport phenomena occurring in materials and components for thermal energy storage systems.
ZECOMIX - Research infrastructure to study and evaluate a complex mix of processes, from coal gasification to syngas cleaning, from CO2 capture and sequestration to hydrogen-rich syngas combustion in a gas turbine.
PCS – Test Collettori Solari is the first plant globally to test molten salts as a heat transfer fluid in the solar technology of linear parabolic collectors. Located at the ENEA Casaccia Research Center (Rome), it’s a key infrastructure for the research and application development of molten salt concentrating solar plants.
HotLab - Laboratory for the study and characterization of high temperature fuel cells equipped to test solid oxide and molten carbonate fuel cells.
MENHIR - Plant dedicated to the study of hydrogen and synthetic methane production coupled to renewable sources for power to gas applications.
“The challenge StoRIES poses is the ability to integrate the numerous infrastructures and skills in the energy storage sector in Europe, combining research and industry with the ambitious goal of creating an actual 'shared' ecosystem for the development of a supply chain”, pointed out Claudia Paoletti, ENEA contact person for the project.
