SCARABEUS presented at the University R&D panel session of the 7th Supercritical CO2 Symposium in San Antonio, TX

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SCARABEUS presented at the University R&D panel session of the 7th Supercritical CO2 Symposium in San Antonio, TX

The Dissemination Coordinator of the SCARABEUS project, Prof. David Sánchez of University of Seville, was invited to join the University R&D Panel organized at the last edition of the Supercritical CO2 Power cycle Symposium, hosted by Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, TX.

The presentation proposed a staged vison for the development of Research and Innovation Actions with the ultimate goal to improve the lives of citizens. In this phased approach, universities and R&D centres drive R&D initially, with support by government and industry. Then, once the maturity of the technology increases, the industry takes over and the role of both R&D and government become secondary. Based on this framework, the speaker evaluated the development of supercritical Carbon Dioxide technology in the last twenty years, in order to trigger a discussion with the audience about whether or not this area of technology is actually following a credible, sustainable pathway.

The second part of the presentation presented the portfolio of projects involving supercritical CO2 technologies that is currently funded by the European Commission, along with their start/end dates and total funding. SCARABEUS was highlighted as a key enabling project to improve the economic viability of the technology, as justified by the results presented in this session (same presentation) and also in other technical sessions of the symposium.

The last part of the presentation shared some results of the survey that is currently being made by the supercritical Carbon Dioxide Working Group of the European Turbine Network. By the way, if you have not filled it in, do not miss the opportunity to do so at: https://etn.global/news-and-events/news/sco2_survey_symposium/

Download presentation by Prof. Sánchez

 

PANNEL SESSION

 

The potential and technical challenges of the SCARABEUS project presented at the 7th Supercritical Power Cycles Symposium held at Soutwest Research Institute, TX

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The potential and technical challenges of the SCARABEUS project presented at the 7th Supercritical Power Cycles Symposium held at Soutwest Research Institute, TX

The team at University of Seville, on behalf of the consortium, presented the potential of the SCARABEUS project to overcome the main limitations experienced by all power cycles in the usually warm environments where Concentrated Solar Power facilities are located. High ambient temperatures are inherent to these sites and they set an intrinsic limit to the achievable thermal performance of the power block, which translates into larger solar fields and worse economic performance.

SCARABEUS is exposed to the same constraint but it also exhibits a much higher resistance to performance deterioration when ambient temperature increases. Nevertheless, there is no such thing as free lunch and this comes at the cost of technical and economic barriers that the consortium is currently working to overcome. If you want to find out more, check the collective symposium paper here.

 

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