Poster presentation at the 30th SolarPACES Conference, October 2024, Rome, Italy

The UT team represented the HERCULES project at the 30th SolarPACES Conference held on 8-11th of October in Rome, Italy, during which the poster presentation was showcased. SolarPACES is one of several Technology Collaboration Programmes (TCP) organized in the framework of the International Energy Agency (IEA). It operated as an international network of stakeholders, mostly research institutions, in concentrating solar power (CSP) refining a form of solar power that is dispatchable on demand because it includes thermal energy storage. 

In this poster presentation, the HERCULES objectives along with utilized three-scale approach was presented:

• The System Scale, which introduces the project benefits from a system level, including the targeted industries, storage density, and lower cost of heating (LCOH). It shows also basic operation of the storage solution and potential external connections.
• The Reactor Scale, which presents the design optimization considerations within the project alongside the multi-scale optimization process. Furthermore, it shows verified preliminary results of a numerical analysis depicted for a sample reactor.
• The Material Scale, which presents the material development and optimization considerations at the mesoscopic scale. Furthermore, the synthesis of a sample storage material considered, a micro-computed tomographically scanned representation, and a numerical flow analysis thereof are introduced.