Flexible automated manufacturing of RST Facets: High Performance Solar Reflectors for CSP industry: AUTO-RST

Programme(s): H2020-EU.3. - PRIORITY 'Societal challenges
H2020-EU.2.3. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs
H2020-EU.2.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies

Topic(s): EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020 - SME instrument

Call for proposal: H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-2

Funding Scheme: SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2

Grant agreement ID: 880218

Objective:

TEWER is a Spanish Engineering Company founded in 2014 by a team of experts in design, optimization and product development for solar plants and industrial technologies, with strong presence in the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) energy market.

TEWER’s RST solar reflector is a disruptive patented solution, a unique sandwich-type, high performance facet for CSP applications, with very robust behaviour under working conditions and with an innovative design and manufacturing process. The technology proposed will remarkably enhance the optical quality to values lower than 0.6mrad for any operational conditions as well as produce the first facets in the market of up to 7sqm. This will allow to reduce the solar field investment by 15% (around 23M€ out of 156M€), disrupting the existing tower thermosolar market. The RST project and its possible future evolutions with joined optimizations with heliostats are aimed at a cost reduction of energy generation using this technology to the tune of 65 to 75 €/MWh depending on the plant location and other business parameters as financing cost. This project drastically improves the production/cost ratio, including both CAPEX and OPEX.

The main objective of the SMEI Phase 2 Project is to transition form the artisanal making of one-off individual facets to a pre-series production that allows to reproduce the design results in large numbers. This will be reached through the deployment of a pilot pre-series production line, representative of the future series production process to verify and validate the quality and performance of representative batches. Once the necessary re-engineering is done, the production process optimized and the facets thoroughly tested and validated, the RST production technology will be ready for market replication. The duration of the project will be of 24 months with a total budget of €2,253,190.