CONVERGY

Solar resource is the optimum renewable energy source to build a climate-neutral energy economy in Europe. However, it is under-exploited for producing heat and electricity, and even more for solar fuels. Today, the large needs for heat and electricity are covered by large-scale power plants delivering an energy vector or another, but not both. CONVERGY is a modular use of concentrated solar beams to produce electricity or heat when needed, considering real-time energy demand and their “selling price” for a given location, largely smoothing the main drawback of the renewable energy sources: its intermittency. It is also a single infrastructure for several energy vectors, a path towards energy production cost reduction and so a support for penetration of renewable energies in EU. The main objectives of CONVERGY are to: - Unlock the current technological bottleneck by developing concentrated photovoltaic receiver modules reaching efficiencies >43% at cell level and >41.9% at receiver level. - Demonstrate and validate at lab-scale (TRL4) the modular use of a single field of heliostats for both heat and electricity production. - Align modular production potential with solar resource to reach levelized cost of electricity of 0.08 €/kWh and roadmap where to implement solution. Main impacts will be to build a knowledge platform on modular use of solar resource that will contribute to save up to 600 tons carbon emission in 2030 and up to 20 Mt in 2050. Also, the project will provide a backbone for the use of energy in future scenarios, support the emergence of new business models where EU actors all along the value chain will be reinforced. The European scientific network from this proposal brings together 5 European partners including 1 University / 2 RTO for technology development, 2 industrials for demonstration and for technology integration and operation, and 1 non-European partner, worldwide leader of concentrated solar use, and ready to transfer knowledge towards partnership. It will provide the support to strengthen the network collaboration towards the setup, the submission and the acceptance of the European project Convergy to be submitted at the next H2020-LC-SC3-RES-1 call.