CO2OLHEAT is an EU’s H2020 funded project aiming to unlock the potential of industrial waste heat and to transform it into power via supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) cycles. The cutting-edge sCO2 technologies will be employed to design and demonstrate the EU’s first-of-its kind sCO2 plant in a real industrial environment.
This pioneer power block will generate completely clean energy while saving significant amount of primary energy and thus also CO2 emissions.
The CO2OLHEAT project will be demonstrated in a real industrial environment in CEMEX cement plant in Prachovice (Czech Republic). This facility has a wide untapped waste heat potential, that is currently not exploited and it is rejected by means of water-cooling towers.
The project will introduce the concept of the circular economy and industrial symbiosis in waste heat management. The CO2OLHEAT 2MW power block will be able to cover approximately 10% of the plant’s electricity needs, translating into 750.000 € savings per year, thus allowing short payback period (estimated between 4 and 8 years).
The replication potential of the selected sites will be exploited via replications studies, allowing local CO2OLHEAT virtual simulations. The studies will include on-site visits, analysis of available energy monitoring, benchmarking with potential WH2P alternatives (both technically and economically) as well as local grid flexibility potential assessment.
The replications sites include Glass industry (Şişecam, Turkey), Aluminium industry (MYTILINEOS, Greece), Steel production (CELSA, Spain), Waste incineration (ENGIE Laborelec, Belgium), Power Generation CCGT (EDF, France), and Power Generation CSP (RINA Consulting, Spain.)
Use of CO2 in its supercritical state is revolutionary and very promising in power generation. It offers benefits of both states – it expands as a gas and it’s dense as a liquid. These unique thermodynamic properties make its use ideal for power conversion in a turbine.
Thanks to the sCO2 power cycles characteristics (flexibility, significant water reduction up to 100%, smaller components’ size and no GHG emissions), they offset the disadvantages of the traditional solutions and make them an ideal technology for Resource and Energy Intensive Industries.
*This project has received funding from European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101022831.
