About us

Objectives

The SFERA-III project addresses advanced science challenges and integrated research activities in the field of Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) by integrating key European research infrastructures into an ambitious wide project aiming at offering to the R&D community a new level of high-quality services.

In this context, the main European research institution operating a unique set of Research Infrastructures (RIs) in CST are coordinating efforts to promote innovative researches, to improve services offered by concentrating solar RIs and to train researchers and engineers on the CST technologies. Both academia and industry users are targeted. These RIs will be open to all European researchers as part of the transnational access activities, from both academia and industry, and attention will be paid to ensure their optimal use and joint development avoiding duplication of the services offered.

A series of networking activities has been set up to reinforce and extend the partnership of the RIs participating in the proposal, including outreach and educational activities for new European researchers; activities to accelerate the transfer of knowledge between the participants, e.g. organisation of doctoral colloquia and the winter/summer schools, workshops and exchange of scientific personnel, ...

In addition, the joint research activities (JRAs) are planned to increase the research capacities and services of the RIs and to improve the existing ones, in such a way that the researches can be extended in number and in quality. This improved infrastructures and services will surely attract an increased number of new users, thus contributing to the overall goals of this SFERA-III project

Work Packages

The structure of the work plan is divided into thirteen work packages (WPs) under three different categories of activities :

Networking activities (WP1, WP2, WP3, WP4 and WP12)
Trans-national access activities (WP5 - comprising the access to 15 RIs)
Joint research activities (WP6, WP7, WP8, WP9, WP10 and WP11).

Capacity building and
training activities

Objectives

- Strengthening the collaboration between the European advanced solar laboratories

- Enhancing the transfer of knowledge and develop new skills between the project partners to foster a culture of cooperation and fasten the adaptation to an ever-evolving CSP context

- Fostering the use of the SFERA-III Research Infrastructures via tailored actions targeted the future users of SFERA III, with a special attention to increase the participation of the industry;

- Sharing the latest developments with the CST community.

- Creating a pool of high-qualified professionals via adequate training activities targeted at the industry, early-stage researchers and the general CSP community.

Scientific and
Technological Exchangese

Objectives

- To consolidate ongoing harmonisation efforts initiated during the SFERA-II project, and extend these efforts to new standards and protocols on a list of pre-defined activities. New activities could be proposed during the project through the access proposal management system;

- To achieve the standardisation of operations and processes within the SFERA-III network;

- To facilitate the exchange of knowledge and best practice among staff working in Research Infrastructures or related to the implementation of new Research Infrastructures;

- To reinforce the scientific collaboration between SFERA-III partners.

Advanced
Integrating Activities

Objectives

- This work package engages all major European research institutes, with relevant and recognised activities on CST technologies, to successfully accomplish the following general objectives:

- Identify the missing infrastructures and services required to accomplish the strategic targets identified in the ‘Initiative for Global Leadership in Concentrated Solar Power – Implementation Plan’;

- Enhance the cooperation between European research institutions to create European added value and filling the gaps among national programmes;

- Align the different national research funding programmes to avoid duplication and to achieve better and faster results;

- Foster the transformation of the consortium into a reference institution for CST and provide support to the parallel external activities aiming at establishing the CST European RIs as a legal structure (EU-SOLARIS ESFRI).

Organisation and
Management of the TA

Objectives

Trans-national
Access Activities

Objectives

- Offering European and non-European researchers from academy and industry effective and well-organised access to unique and diverse European advance solar laboratories and advance solar laboratories in two neighbouring countries;

- Supporting promising researchers who do not have access to high quality RIs in their own country;

- Providing high quality infrastructures and services that enable users to conduct first-class experimental research focusing on CST activities. Facilities are also open for any other suitable R&D project from any other sector needing the use of CST technologies for their success.

Development of test procedures for materials and components of thermal storage systems

Objectives

The main objective of this JRA is enhancing the current services and procedures for reliability of materials and equipment of thermal storage systems through collaborative research activities. The activities will focus on sensible and latent heat storage, but the achievements and developments will certainly pave the base for thermochemical storage. The JRA activities in this WP include not only the construction of new testing devices (ENEA - Task 6.1) but also the operation of already existing facilities; therefore the optimization of their use is an additional expected benefit.

Development and testing of new technological concepts for solar desalination and water treatment facilities

Objectives

This WP is aimed at the design of an e-infrastructure linked to the European R&D centres devoted to CST technologies. Although there is already a good portfolio of European R&D centres devoted to CST and they are fruitfully collaborating in many fields, there is not an e-infrastructure linking all the centres and offering remote access to the facilities, data and specific software and e-services for CST systems.

Dynamic control and
diagnostics of integrated
systems for the production
of solar fuels

Objectives

The objective is to develop high-performance diagnostic and dynamic control tools for solar thermochemical fuel production system using concentrated solar energy. These objectives are broken in three main goals:

- Benchmarking the various technologies available for solar fuel production via CST technologies.

- Developing techniques for testing of components, subsystems, and materials performance and reliability;

- Developing dedicated software and algorithms for the dynamic control and optimized operation of each subsystem and of the entire integrated fuel production system.

Monitoring physical properties
of receiver materials at
focal point of concentrated
solar facilities

Objectives

This WP focuses on improving services to develop and test high performance and durable solar receivers as it is the key component that collects the solar energy to transfer it to the conversion process (electricity, solar fuels…): their performance and their lifetime define the commercial success of the whole CST plant. Therefore, we intend to improve the consortium services to test and qualify current and next generation solar processes by providing services for academic and industrial users to develop high performance long life cost effective solar receivers thanks to:

- In-situ precise characterisation of the thermomechanical degradation of solar receivers

- Accurate infrared temperature measures despite materials degradation during their solar usage

- Improved solar accelerated ageing services for materials for CST

Sensor calibrations and techniques for accurate determination of performance parameters of prototypes installed in RI

Objectives

- Eliminate practical problems related with sensors and laboratory test benches during characterization of prototypes in the research infrastructures

- Investigate and solve the problems caused by intermittence of solar radiation during solar tests in research infrastructures and during evaluation of performance parameters of new systems tested in research infrastructures

- Increase the quality of services for optical characterization of line- and point-focussing concentrators

Towards an European
e-Infrastructure on
CST technologies

Objectives

- Benchmarking the various technologies available for solar fuel production via CST technologies.

- Developing techniques for testing of components, subsystems, and materials performance and reliability;

- Developing dedicated software and algorithms for the dynamic control and optimized operation of each subsystem and of the entire integrated fuel production system.

Communication,
dissemination, and
exploitation of results

Objectives

To disseminate the foreground to the EU community, key professionals, scientific communities, private sector, policy makers and the general public;

- To engage a wide range of stakeholders in order to guarantee the long-term sustainability of the project results and to ensure maximum visibility of the project through tailored communication activities in order to raise awareness about the potential of high-temperature research infrastructures;

- To foster the innovation potential of the SFERA-III RIs, including the development of the innovation .culture inside the SFERA-III consortium.

- To promote the standards developed in the project to boost the adoption of these standards in international standardization bodies and adapt proactively to new developments and support European competitiveness

Management and Coordination

Objectives

This work package is aimed at:

- coordinating the actions of participants and progress monitoring for implementation of the work plan;

- providing financial and administrative management of the consortium as a whole:

- ensuring an effective collaboration and information exchange between the partners;

- becoming a single contact point with the European Commission (EC), and a reliable interface to external stakeholders and the public at large;

- ensuring the high quality of the project outcomes;

- considering relevant gender issues;

- identifying and mitigating the project risks by performing an effective risk management.

More information about WP deliverables

Partners

Transnational Access Activities to CSP Research Infrastructures

CIEMAT

CNRS

ENEA

DLR

CEA

UEVORA

ETHZ

IMDEA

CIEMAT

COUNTRY : ES

TYPE : RES

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

CIEMAT's participation in SFERA-III will be performed by the staff of Plataforma Solar the Almería (PSA), the largest public R&D centre in the World devoted to concentrating solar thermal systems. CIEMAT will offer trans-national access to the first-class experimental facilities at PSA related to solar water treatment, water desalination and concentrating solar systems with high solar flux. CIEMAT will also participate in the NAs and JRAs. In the NAs CIEMAT will participate in the workshops planned to check and verify measurement equipment and test protocols in the field of solar treatment of water, water desalination and qualification of components for solar concentrators. CIEMAT will also participate in the continuous monitoring of RI needs for CST in Europe. In the JRAs CIEMAT will participate in the activities aimed at improving current test devices and facilities to offer a better service.

CNRS

COUNTRY : FR

TYPE : RES

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

CNRS has been exploring research and industrial usages of concentrated solar energy for 70 years using world unique facilities, especially high concentration solar furnaces. CNRS is a founding member of the EU-SOLARIS ESFRI project under construction, and has been deeply involved in numerous European projects on CST for decades, particularly in previous infrastructure and coordination projects such as SOLFACE, SFERA, SFERA-II and STAGE-STE. In this project, CNRS-PROMES will provide about 80 weeks of Access to most of its solar facilities (high concentration solar furnaces, parabolic trough and solar tower plants) for 100 to 120 external users. CNRS is involved in almost all WPs and leads WP1 (NA1: Capacity building and training activities) as well as WP9 (JRA4: Monitoring physical properties of receiver materials at focal point of concentrated solar facilities).

Discover some pictures of the CNRS-PROMES CSP facilities.

ENEA

COUNTRY : IT

TYPE : RES

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

ENEA carry out activities in the CST sector since 2000 involving a team of 70 researchers and technicians and a park of specific experimental infrastructures (plants and laboratories) located at the Casaccia research centre. By using parabolic trough collectors, ENEA has developed an innovative technology chain based on a molten salt mixture functioning as heat transfer fluid and thermal storage. ENEA has been deeply involved in numerous European projects on CST for decades, particularly in previous infrastructure and coordination projects such as SFERA, SFERA-II and STAGE-STE. ENEA will offer access to the Casaccia CSP facilities; and will participate in WPs 1, 2, 3 and 4. SFERA-III ENEA’s main contributions are: (1) development of a dynamic control and diagnostics of integrated systems for the production of solar fuels; (2) definition of the need to develop an European e-Infrastructure on CST technologies; (3) contribution at the definition of the methodologies for Sensor calibrations and techniques for accurate determination of performance parameters of prototypes installed in RI.

DLR

COUNTRY : DE

TYPE : RES

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

DLR as part of the Sollab Alliance is one of the major laboratories for research and technology on solar concentrating systems. Aside basic research, DLR research is focused on industrial relevant topics. In SFERA-III, the main contributions are: (1) Provide users access to Synlight sun simulator; (2) Training for industries, Sollab doctoral colloquium and summer school, standardization and benchmarking; (3) Qualification and determination of optical, thermal and mechanical performance parameters of prototypes and components mounted in research infrastructure; (4) -Infrared measurements in operating experiments under challenging conditions (varying emittance, large surfaces); and (5) Participate in EU-Solaris and e-Infrastructure.

CEA

COUNTRY : FR

TYPE : RES

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

CEA through its institute LITEN is one of Europe's leading research centres in the new energy technology field. Within SFERA-III CEA’s main contributions are: (1) Provide users access to ESTHER and DURASOL infrastructure, (2) Leading WP 2 and tasks 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 6.3, 7.4, (3) Continuous monitoring of research infrastructure needs for CST in Europe, (4) Training for industries and short-term training on ageing and characterisation of materials for CST, (5) Definition of common standards, protocols and interoperability, (6) Development of protocols to test prototypes for storage systems, (7) Improvement of capabilities, performance and quality of software dedicated to desalination design, (8) Dynamic control and automation of solar fuel reactors, (9) Improvement of the in-situ assessment of the mechanical health of solar receivers, (10) Improvement of the infrared temperature measurements thanks to better assessment of the emittance and its evolution.

UEVORA

COUNTRY : PT

TYPE : UNI

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

UEVORA and its organic group Renewable Energies Chair is one of the major research centers in Portugal in solar energy related topics. Within SFERA-III UEVORA’s contributions are: (1) Definition of common standards, protocols and interoperability; (2) Characterization and feasibility of materials for storage media and TES systems; (3) Innovative components for solar driven wastewater treatment plants based on CPC collectors; (4) Provide access to the EMSP (Evora Molten Salt Platform) and PECS (Solar Collectors Testing Bench) facilities for accurate determination of performance parameters of prototypes; and (5) Participation in the communication/dissemination, promotion and e-Infrastructure of the project.

ETHZ

COUNTRY : CH

TYPE : UNI

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

R&D in the thermal and chemical engineering sciences with focus on high-temperature heat/mass transfer phenomena and multi-phase reacting flows, with applications in solar power, fuels, and materials production. ETHZ leads JRA3 - Dynamic control and diagnostics of integrated systems for the production of solar fuels. PREC has pioneered the development of solar thermochemical reactor technologies for producing clean transportation fuels using concentrated solar energy, and operates state-of-the-art laboratories for conducting research and development of solar thermochemical technologies, and that is why PREC is an ideal choice to co-ordinate this research topic.

IMDEA

COUNTRY : ES

TYPE : RES

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

It provides its expertise on very-high solar concentration systems and technologies mainly focused on sustainable production of energy carriers and raw materials using high-concentrations solar energy. Technical skills of interest in this project involve high-temperature processes engineering; optical design and characterisation of solar concentrators; material testing at high-temperature/high UV/Vis/IR radiation fluxes; and process simulation from systems analysis (flow sheeting) to computational fluid dynamics Participation in networking activities NA1 (WP1), NA2 (WP2), NA3 (WP3), NA4 (WP4), NA5 (WP12), trans-national activity TA1 (WP5) and joint research activities JRA3 (WP8) and JRA5 (WP10). Leader of subtask 8.1.

CYI

FRAUNHOFER

LNEG

METU

UAL

EURO

ESTELA

CYI

COUNTRY : CY

TYPE : RES

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

The Cyprus Institute is located in the Eastern Mediterranean, and is the only institution with advanced operating STE infrastructures in the region. Within SFERA-III CYI provides access to the Fresnel, PROTEAS, and Heliostat Testing facilities, and contributes to organization of user meetings, educational activities and trainings, leads the joint research activity on Desalination and Water Treatment, and participate in round robin tests and workshops relating to joint research actions on thermal storage and sensor performance.

FRAUNHOFER

COUNTRY : DE

TYPE : RES

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

The high temperature solar thermal and industrial process department is concerned with optics and surface technology to better transmit, reflect, absorb, redirect or concentrate solar radiation, as well as with solar thermal storage development and water treatment. Components and systems technology for CST plants are developed further in all aspects. Within SFERA-III FRA contributions are: (1) Advancement of sensor calibration and performance assessment procedures for line focusing collectors, soiling measurements and reflector panel shape measurements at research infrastructures; (3) Development and testing of membrane concepts for solar desalination and water treatment in CST plants; (3) Standardization of molten salt storage testing procedures. It is involved in the activities in WP1, WP2 and WP3 and also provides access to some of its key solar RIs.

LNEG

COUNTRY : PT

TYPE : RES

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

LNEG gathers experience of more than 30 years in the field of Solar energy. It has testing facilities transversal to many research areas within the field of renewable energy which have proven to be relevant in the field of CST. LNEG’s infrastructure available to the project in TA is composed by three main facilities: Materials and Solar Laboratories; Fuel Cells and Hydrogen; High-Performance Computing Cluster. It also participates in NAs (WP2, 3, 4 12, 13) and JRAs (WP6 and WP8).

METU

COUNTRY : TR

TYPE : UNI

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

METU will contribute to the JRA Task 6.3 ‘Development of protocols to test prototypes for storage systems’, with its unique expertise in the coupling of Computational Fluid Mechanics and the Discrete Element Method (CFD+DEM) to model high temperature dense granular flows, and the application of this modelling to identify suitable particle-based storage materials and to develop novel heat exchangers for charging and discharging of high-temperature solid-particle thermal energy storage systems. It will also contribute to the NAs by developing Turkish CST markets and capacities, and synergistically integrating these into larger European CST networks; and by opening its solar simulator for TNA.

UAL

COUNTRY : ES

TYPE : UNI

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

The University of Almeria participates in this project through its Solar Energy Research Centre (CIESOL) which develops research lines on modelling and control of CST plants, evaluation and forecast of solar resource, solar photocatalytic water decontamination and disinfection, membrane distillation. CIESOL accumulates knowledge and expertise on solar processes at pilot and pre-industrial scale and environmental advanced analytical chemistry backed up by 25 years of research activity. CIESOL will allow TNA to its unique facilities and will be part of the NAs and JRAs (WP7), to share its expertise in predictive and hierarchical control of solar energy systems and solar wastewater treatments with special emphasis on the removal of contaminants of emerging concern.

EURO

COUNTRY : FR

TYPE : SME

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

Specialized in communication and exploitation activities for R&D projects (see WP12 description) and networking activities in general (organisation of events, management of exchange of personnel, networking with other CST projects through already ongoing H2020 other initiatives, exhibition organiser, communication manager, etc). EURO is leader of the WP12 on Dissemination and Exploitation activities and WP2 task 3 leader on the management of the mobility of the partners

ESTELA

COUNTRY : BE

TYPE : NP

SKILLS / MAIN ROLE UN THE PROJECTS :

ESTELA will continue to support and contribute to this project, acting as bridge between the ‘SFERA-III Research Infrastructures’ and the European Solar Industry, with an expected relevant contribution in the ‘Networking Activities’, therefore reinforcing the connection between the industry and research institutions.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 823802

About us

Objectives

Workplan

Partners

Objectives