EU-funded CO2OLHEAT launched

The “CO2OLHEAT” project – Supercritical CO2 power cycles demonstration in Operationa environment Locally valorising industrial Waste Heat – started officially on 1 June 2021. The project, funded by the EU Research and Innovation Programme Horizon 2020 (G.A. 101022831), has an overall budget of approximately €18,8 mil. and will run for four years, between June 2021 and May 2025. CO2OLHEAT’s ambition is to support the EU’s energy efficiency targets and GHG emissions reduction. This translates into the project’s main objective – to unlock the potential of unused industrial waste heat and transform it into power. The development of innovative and cuttingedge supercritical CO2 (sCO2) technologies will be used to design and demonstrate in a real industrial environment the EU-first-of-its-kind sCO2 plant.

On that account, 21 partners formed a consortium that will work together towards the development of this flexible, innovative, economically viable and easily replicable 2MW sCO2 power block. The technology will be demonstrated in the CEMEX cement plant in Prachovice (Czech Republic). The project will have six virtual replication sites across different industries: glass (Turkey), aluminium (Greece), steel (Spain), waste incineration (Belgium), gas power generation (France) and solar power generation (Spain).

CO2OLHEAT’s waste-heat-to-power (WH2P) application is based on a recuperated closedloop Brayton cycle with sCO2 as a working fluid. Thanks to its flexibility (compact size and capability to better accommodate load changes), high efficiency and the ability to work with significant temperatures, the sCO2 power block offsets the disadvantages of the traditional WH2P applications

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sCO2 WH2P applications will mitigate the increase of electricity consumption while introducing
the concept of circular economy and industrial symbiosis in heat management: the unused
heat in heavy industries (chemical, iron & steel and cement manufacturing), accounts for more
than half of all the EU industrial WH potential. Most importantly, CO2OLHEAT will facilitate
savings of primary energy consumption and thus reductions of CO2 emissions.

The CO2OLHEAT consortium includes partners from all previously EU funded projects on sCO2 cycles. The 21 partners from 11 different European countries involved in this project are: ETN (BE), Rina Consulting (IT), Siemens Energy (DE), University of Duisburg-Essen (DE), Baker Hughes (IT), Politecnico di Milano (IT), SimeROM (RO), CEMEX Czech Republic (CZ) (with the support of CEMEX Innovation Holding AG and CEMEX Polska Z.o.o.), Brunel University London (UK), MAS (EL), University of Roma Tre (IT), CERTH (EL), Leitat (ES), Heatric (UK), ENEA (IT), ENGIE Laborelec (BE), EDF (FR), MYTILINEOS (EL), Şişecam (TR), Bosal (BE) and CELSA (ES).

More information on the project can be found at:
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101022831