Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) technologies as PTES solutions studied in ECO-SEARCHERS are at different levels of maturity and market readiness, but they are attracting unprecedented interest from governments, utilities, and transmission operators, and investment in the sector is rising fast. More than 5 Gigawatt (GW) and 65 Gigawatt-hours (GWh) of LDES capacity has been globally announced or is already operational. Looking at Power-to-Heat-to-Power solutions, startups like MALTA, ENERGYNEST, AZELIO are
attracting more and more investments. This is only a start: McKinsey modelling for the study suggests that by 2040, LDES has the potential to deploy 1.5 to 2.5 terawatts (TW) of power capacity—or eight to 15 times the total energy-storage capacity deployed today—globally. Likewise, it could deploy 85 to 140 terawatt-hours (TWh) of energy capacity by 2040 and store up to 10 percent of all electricity consumed. This corresponds
to a cumulative investment of 1500-3000 B€. A key milestone for LDES is reached when RES reaches 60-70% market share in bulk power systems, as foreseen by EU energy strategy for 2050: it’s therefore crucial to be prepared and have reliable technologies to store large bulk of electricity for long time via system like PTES one. R&D co-funded project for early deployments of LDES would help derisk the market for investors and
enable the market to scale. Some examples are: 1) UK, where the government launched a $100 million LDES demonstration competition (targeting power-to-hydrogen and Liquid Air Energy Storage mostly) in early 2021 to accelerate project commercialization; 2) United States, where the Department of Energy is overseeing a $1 billion program (“Earthshot’’) to reduce the costs of LDES systems with more than ten hours of storage capacity by 90 percent in ten years (also valorising activities/results as STEP project); 3) Private investors like Breakthrough Energy which is investing in MALTA solutions. Further than Energy Storage application, there is a huge market interest in sCO2 within the energy industry mostly for the following applications: i) more efficient bottoming cycles in GT Combined Cycles, ii) waste heat plants, iii) coal plants to be de-mothballed and
re-converted, iv) nuclear plants power cycles, v) CSP application. The most analysed market for sCO2 is related to heat recovery application, which DOE/Echogen quoted around 30-50 B€/B$. Availability of a sCO2 cycle is of high interest in areas with growing RES concentration, where the need for a highly flexible fossil plant is crucial to face the challenges of RES intermittent production. That is mostly true in Europe (Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, etc), where RES keep spreading and create some grid management issues, but also in other regions (especially Asia). Moreover, the sCO2 cycle being transferable to biomass, solar and nuclear applications too, the potential benefits of the development of such a cycle can extend to energy sectors other than coal and lignite (as investigated by EDF in sCO2FLEX project). Within this framework, assuming that the sCO2 solutions will reach its full technological maturity for becoming commercial between 2027-2030, initial sales volumes are estimated to amount around 200-300 MW/yr considering worldwide potential. A widespread of sCO2 turbomachinery as key flexible, reliable, efficient turbomachinery for EU clean energy driven system, will also put CO2 in a new “general audience position”: so far CO2 is seen as an evil, but thanks to sCO2 turbomachinery, it will be possible to showcase that CO2 can reduce CO2. Finally, UNIGE has launched in 2018 the academic innovative startup “SIT Technologies”, for developing bladeless machinery in real commercial applications, already holding an international Patent [SIT patent 2018] on such technology. Given the innovations that will be brought forward in the ECO-SEARCHERS project, an INTER-UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC STARTUP company will be targeted, merging the existing startup and involving mainly UNIGE and UNIFI into this new company, to join the efforts and bring Tesla turbomachinery to the next level of performance and maturity.